


A Stranger Comes to Town

by Saved8D



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics), Justice League - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-20
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2018-12-31 19:38:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 21
Words: 129,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12139638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saved8D/pseuds/Saved8D
Summary: An ordinary man from an ordinary universe is plopped down in the DCU by the Spectre to pass judgement, given a single ability and wide-reaching knowledge of the DCU. His first task is straightforward enough: kill those who deserve it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an original character, and he bears traits to me, but I'll try to prevent a Mary Sue situation.

Although it ended well for me, I cannot in good conscience recommend traveling to parallel universes.  
It happened on a Thursday, probably the 18th, but I think I can be forgiven if I can’t give a crap about the exact date because, let’s be honest, what happened next was far more exciting than what day of the month it was.  
But first, you should know who I am. Hi. I’m a nerd, and more importantly, a geek. I don’t write comic books. I’m male. I’m 19 years old. I hate my name, so when I was transported to the other world, I changed it to Lee, though this is very far outside of my ethnicity.  
More facts might be revealed about me as I go, so let’s start with the inciting incident.  
So here I was, sitting in my room in my parents’ house, trying to do homework for school. Simple, right? Just regular old trigonometry. Except this is rather difficult to do when your desk, homework, book, calculator, pencils and a dozen other things disappear in an instant before your very eyes, and you are left stranded in a gray void.  
I am told I am one of two people this has happened to. I know this because an amused voice said, “You are one of two people this has happened to.”  
I nearly jumped out of my skin and I turned to see who it was. It was a man, with a green hood connecting to a long green cape. He wore green boot and gloves, and his face, shrouded down to his nose by the hood, had glowing white eyes that made me forget his skin was white as chalk and the only other article of clothing he was wearing was a green speedo.  
“Holy crap,” I said out loud, “you’re the Spectre.”  
The Spectre. The misspelled spirit of vengeance from the DC universe. What in the heck is happening here?  
“Hi,” I said, and I remembered advice my dad had given me. I held out my hand. “My name’s Lee. It’s nice to meet you.”  
The Spectre stared at my hand, and took it. I shook firmly, knowing it would set me up on equal footing with the representation of God, and vengeance…  
You know what, I’ll just take whatever edge I can get.  
He smiled at me. “Mortals. I always find you amusing.”  
“’Scuse you, I plan on living forever.” Dammit now is not the time to get sassy.  
He smiled broader, and pulled his hand away. His cloak rippled on his own, which was awesome and made him look really cool. “I have brought you here for a purpose,” he said, his voice echoing through the gray void.  
“Fantastic. It’s the first time God has told me anything about life in general.”  
He tilted his head. “Ah, yes, you do know about our world. That will make things easier.”  
“Easier? For whom?”  
“You.”  
“Great. I wish I knew what I was doing so my task could be easier.”  
“Your task is to render judgement.”  
“Your outfit could use work.”  
That slipped out of my mouth before I could stop myself, and then I just stood there looking mortified as Spectre just tilted his head and stared at me.  
“Hm,” he said, smiling. “In all my centuries, I have never met a mortal who is willing to tell me that to my face. A curious kind of bravery on your part.”  
“Thanks,” I said, confused as to why the Spectre was now complimenting me on being sassy. Wait, Spectre, right? Doesn’t that mean he can read my mind?  
“Yes.”  
“Holy f-”  
“And if we have all our cards on the table, I would prefer you not call just anything ‘holy’, if you don’t mind.”  
“Oh… sure, no problem.”  
“Good. You are moving to a world you were never born in. The world where I reside… what would you term it?”  
“The, uh… DC comics universe?”  
“Yes. You are knowledgeable in what their lives are like, and you are allowed to pass absolute judgement on them.”  
“And… why don’t you do it?”  
“I am… bound, from taking vengeance on mortals in just any way I would like. Therefore, a free agent without my level of abilities would be allowed to do so.”  
“Because the Presence binds you, right?”  
“You know more than I thought. Yes, because he does. But you, he does not. So I will send you to this world to-”  
“Pass judgement, yes. But why me?”  
He smiled. “Because it seemed interesting.”  
My blood ran cold, and I suddenly remembered this was the same being that turned a man who had abused rats into cheese so the rats could eat him. And he did this on a kid’s cartoon.  
Right. Definitely the type to drop a random kid in the DCU to “judge” as it were.  
“Alright, cool,” I said. “But you should know I have, like, zero training in crime-fighting.”  
“I have given you something for that,” he said, smiling still. “Let us see if you can discover it.”  
“Wait, that’s not helpfulllllllllll,” I said as the equivalent of being flushed down a toilet pulled me out of the gray void.

I woke up in the middle of the street, and I shot to my feet as fast as I could. The guy in the car yelled “Can’t you time travel on the sidewalks?!” and drove off angrily.  
That was the second most surreal thing that’s ever happened to me. So I decided to turn to the nearest passerby (a woman with blonde hair) and ask “Pardon me, but what city am I in, and what year is it?”  
“Time travel?” she asked without looking up from her phone.  
“Uh, dimensional jumper, I think.”  
“Ah. This is Gotham City, and it’s April, 2017.”  
“Thanks.”  
“Wait, hold on,” she said, reaching into her purse. She pulled out a wallet, and then held out a dollar bill for me. “Does your currency look like this?”  
I reached into my pocket for my own wallet (I had just gotten back from school, so I had my traveling stuff on me) and pulled out a dollar bill. We held ours together, and it looked like they matched up pretty well.  
“Okay, good,” she said, sliding it back into her wallet and that back into her purse. “So you can still spend money. Fantastic. Just so long as you don’t inflate the economy too much, you should be good.”  
“Is… is this something you guys have to deal with on a regular basis?”  
“Hm? Nah, but enough people have posted about it online that we generally know what to do when it happens.”  
“Okay, cool.”  
“Hey, could I get a picture with you?”  
“…no?”  
“Oh, drat. Could I at least mention you? I have a tumblr blog, and I think this would get me a lot of reblogs.”  
“Eh, sure. My name’s Lee, by the way. You can use that.”  
“Okay, thank you! Have a great day! Oh, and welcome to Earth.” She walked off after that.  
“I’m from Earth,” I whisper to nobody in particular.  
I turn and see a bar across the way. An idea forms in my head that I’ve always wanted to try an alcohol, and since I have a good story for it, I may get a shot or something.  
So I cross as the crosswalk, step into the bar, and then sit down on a stool in front of the bartender. “I’d like a shot of tequila, please,” I say.  
“You got an ID?” the bearded bartender replies without looking up from the glass he’s cleaning.  
“I’m from a parallel Earth.”  
“That’s rough, buddy. What’s technology like?”  
“That’s the first thing you ask?”  
“Generally gets the idea of your Earth across.”  
“Oh. Well, we don’t have…” I glanced over at a man in the corner, using a hologram from his phone. “…holograms.”  
The bartender raised his eyebrow, and set a bottle of some alcohol on the bar. “That’s rough. Tell you what. You tell me what your Earth is like, and if I think it’s bad enough, you get the bottle.”  
“Oh. Well, we have no super heroes or villains. No super powers either. Or androids, robots or cyborgs.”  
“Almost got it.”  
I glanced around the room for inspiration. That’s when I noticed it.  
I turned back to the bartender. “I am average when it comes to looks on my Earth.”  
He looked at me, then at everyone else in the bar, and then pushed the bottle towards me.  
I popped it open, and took a long gulp, thinking that my first drink on Earth was underage.  
And this has happened twice.  
I took another drink.  
Yes, for SOME REASON everyone here was more attractive than me at a glance. Maybe it was because we were out in public, but it just seemed to be the case that the scales here were tipped towards the more attractive. Maybe this is just because of the ways the comics were drawn, but… bleh. No need to focus on it.  
So, passing judgement. What did that mean? Who do I pass judgement on?  
The door slammed open before I could monologue any longer.  
“HELLO, fellow humans!” shouted a Mark Hamill-y voice.  
My blood ran cold, and I turned to stare at the new figure standing in the doorway.  
Purple jacket? Check. Spats? Check. White face? Check. Red makeup on the mouth and scars in the form of a twisted smile? Check.  
What we have here, ladies and gentlemen, is the Joker, the Clown Prince of Crime.  
“What was that?” he said, staring at me.  
Crap. I said that out loud.  
I nervously smiled. “Something I thought up in my spare time?” I said weakly.  
The Joker stared at me for like five seconds, and then he laughed in his way, a sort of HAHAHAHAHOHOHOHOHEEHEEHEEHEE that unnerved me and made me laugh a little.  
“Ooh, I like it!” he said, walking over to me and putting his arm around my shoulder. I looked up there. “You know, so few people really care about titles. It’s nice to see someone that actually cares about me for a change.” He sniffed and wiped a tear falling from his eye.  
“Do… you wish Batman had given you that title?”  
“Old Batsy? No, he doesn’t seem the type. If he called me that, I would know it wasn’t the old grump in that hood. Ah, now I’m upset. Thanks for the talk. It’s been real.”  
He stepped away from me, and spun in a giddy circle. “This was much better than what I came here for! Now I feel like I don’t need to kill anybody!” He marched to the front door, and said, “Toodles!” and left.  
There was silence for a few seconds. “Everyone okay?” I asked nervously.  
There were murmurs of ‘yes’ scattered about, and gradually everyone sat down and continued what they had been doing. I turned back to the bottle and reached for it.  
The door slammed back open, and the Joker came into the room and said, “Nope, I still feel like it!” and shot me in the face.

I woke up on the floor of the bar a few minutes later.  
I sat up. There was no pain.  
I glanced around me, staring at the faces that were staring at me.  
I asked, “What happened?” in as calm a voice as I could muster.  
The bartender handed me a bullet. Not in a case or anything, just a bullet that is fired from a gun.  
From Joker’s gun.  
I stood up, and glanced at the bottle, still sitting on the bar.  
I grabbed it, and smashed it into my face.  
The bottle shattered. I was fine.  
“What the heck,” I said, saying the worst curse word I dared. Similar sentiments spread through the rest of the bar.  
I turned to the bartender. “Punch me in the face.”  
“No.” he replied. “But I’ll do you one better.” He reached behind the bar, pulled out a baseball bat, and smashed it across my face.  
It stopped dead. I didn’t feel anything.  
“Well, now,” I said aloud. “This sure is something.”  
“Did you not realize you were invulnerable?” one of the bar patrons asked.  
“I had no idea,” I replied. Of course, I’m not really listening to her at this point because, suddenly, I have the best Idea ever. I suddenly realize what I’ve been put on this Earth for.  
I’m going to kill the Joker.  
It took only a few days to find out where Arkham Asylum was located. In fact, it was almost trivial, considering that Joker was captured a few days later by Batman (never saw the guy) and was returned to Arkham the same day.  
The challenging part was waiting for him to break out, because it was obvious he would. And he waited for six months.  
In that time, I got a job, stayed at an apartment, and then figured out the limits of my invulnerability, as one does. It turns out that I don’t need to breathe, I don’t need to eat, and, as a consequence of the latter, I don’t need to go to the bathroom. I need neither water or warmth. The only thing I might need is a social circle, but I haven’t decided to test that yet.  
These tests all took me three months to figure out. Once I figured out I didn’t really need anything, the second part of my plan became easy.  
I quit my job, and walked directly to the entrance gate of Arkham with a crowbar. I knew there were other inmates in Arkham, and I knew I didn’t want to hurt them, so I did what any Terminator-esque super hero would do.  
I stood there and waited.  
It turns out that, because I am invulnerable, my muscles and joints don’t get tired, as well. I can stand in wind, hail and sleet (winter months) for days on end without getting tired.  
The days stretched on, and I felt myself going into a semi-comatose state, just staring at the Arkham gates, listening to the horrifying sounds coming from within. Sometimes I heard a reptilian roar, and I thought of Killer Croc. Sometimes there was a thousand voices, morphing and shifting into one another, and I thought of Clayface. At one point, plants sprouted from the south wing, and I thought of Poison Ivy herself.  
Eventually, though, I saw an explosion rock the building, and I heard a motorcycle. A few seconds later, I was greeted with the sound of his distinct laughter, followed by another, more feminine voice.  
I awoke from my stupor with the thought of It’s time.  
The motorcycle was getting nearer, and I could also hear the sounds of shotguns and pistols going off, which only told me that good ol’ Joker was getting busted out by his main squeeze and abuse-receiver Harley Quinn. Wow, that was harsh of me.  
I gripped the crowbar tighter, and waited.  
The gate ruptured in front of me in a plume of smoke and fire. I stepped directly into the middle of the path, and braced myself.  
A motorcycle rushed through the smoke, and I was greeted to the sight of Joker and Harley Quinn, laughing their heads off and holding weapons in each hand, while the bike presumably steered itself.  
Then it smashed into and around me.  
My shirt was ruined, but luckily my jeans were still intact. I heard a cry of dismay and pain from the Joker and Harley Quinn, respectively, and a crashing sound as the bike ripped itself apart on me.  
I turned around to find Harley Quinn leaning against a tree, holding her head, her arm at a crooked angle. The bike was a smoldering heap to the side, and the man himself was lying faceup in a white asylum gettup, staring at the sky and grinning. Both his arms were bleeding profusely.  
I walked over to him, still holding my crowbar. He turned and stared at me, grinning.  
“Well, hello again! I thought you were dead!” He coughed up blood. “Funny, the tricks your mind plays on you. Tell me, is your entire body that hard?”  
“Yes,” I replied. And then I mashed his face in with the crowbar.  
I continued to hit his face with the crowbar until it was reduced to reddish mush. And after that, I worked on his chest, his arms, every part of him that still looked solid, I beat in with the crowbar. And when that was done, I walked over to the motorcycle, grabbed the tank of gas, and poured it over his remains. Then I grabbed a part of the motorcycle that was still smoking, and tossed it on the remains.  
It went up in a blaze, in a sudden burst that would have surprised me if I hadn’t been invulnerable.  
I managed to keep myself mostly intact, emotionally, but the sight of the gore really made me want to vomit. I nearly broke when I heard Harley Quinn sobbing and begging for me to stop. But the worst thing about it was the way Joker took it.  
He did as he always did. He laughed.  
He laughed as I beat his face in. He laughed as it was vanishing. And, even though his face was gone, his body still shook with convulsions as if it decided to keep laughing without his head there.  
And he never, not once, stopped smiling. Even when his mouth was gone, his teeth broken, and his skin shredded. And even when his body was burning, I could still see that smile staring back at me.  
Within a few minutes, though, it was done. His body, or what was left of it, was in flames. He was dead.  
“Puddin’,” Harley Quinn muttered weakly.  
“At this point, he is,” I said. Then I walked out of her line of sight, and dry-heaved for five minutes.

I shouldn’t have been surprised by what happened next.  
I went back to my apartment, and I sat there, quietly, in an arm chair a coworker had gotten for me. It was old, but comfortable, and I really liked it.  
I just stared at the wall for what felt like years, but when I checked the clock it had been merely seconds.  
I killed him.  
I killed the Joker.  
I smiled, and almost let myself laugh out loud at the absurdity of it. I, a normal human from normal Earth, killed the Joker. I had some help, sure, but… damn. I just killed him.  
And my biological conditioning was making me regret it.  
I’d done reading, in the three months I’d worked. I found out that Joker’s body count was almost into the thousands. I knew he’d laugh and piss on every single one of his victims’ graves.  
And I was regretting killing him.  
I gripped the arms of my chair tighter. No regrets. No pain. This was for the greater good. I would not regret the murder of a monster.  
I would not.  
My face was wet with tears.  
Goddammit, why?! Why should I feel bad for him?! For her?! WHY?!  
He didn’t deserve my pity. He was out to kill again. He didn’t deserve to live.  
I breathed in and out until my breath returned to normal. I wiped my face. I was fine. I would get over this. I had done something justifiably good.  
One of the rare times murder in cold blood is the right thing to do.  
I stood, and turned to shut the window. Had it been open before…?  
He was there.  
“Holy-!” I said before I could stop myself.  
I knew the tricks he used. I knew it was mostly theatrics and gadgets, but damn if it wasn’t effective. I hadn’t even heard him come in, and now he was just standing there, the wind blowing his cape, staring at me with those glowing eyes from under his peaked cowl.  
The Batman himself. In the flesh.  
Who’d have ever thought a man dressed like a rodent could be so frackin’ scary. Hot damn, but he was.  
He didn’t even say anything for the first few seconds I saw him. He just stood, glaring at me.  
“You killed the Joker,” he said at last, his voice almost quiet. It was surprising how much menace he could put into a single sentence.  
My throat was dry. I swallowed in an attempt to clear it. “Y-yeah?” I said in my bravest voice. “A-and what of it?”  
His eyes narrowed. “There’s a reason we don’t kill. It makes us no better than them.”  
“Well, yeah, I get that, but…”  
Even narrower. “What?”  
“How many,” I said, slowly at first, “how many people died because you refused to kill him.”  
He said nothing.  
“How many people died because you refused to put that animal out of its miserable life?”  
Silence.  
“How many hundreds of children did he make orphans of because you refused to bend, even when it would have saved them?!”  
I took a deep breath.  
“How many children swore revenge in a back alleyway because you couldn’t bear to become like him?!”  
I could’ve sworn I heard a sharp intake of breath. He hadn’t moved, though.  
“So, fine. I broke your absolute moral code. Goody for me. I’m the bad guy now. But hey, at least I’ve prevented more children from becoming like you, Bruce. Can you imagine another Batman running around? God forbid he actually have the courage to do what you couldn’t.”  
“You know who I am,” he said quietly.  
“Damn straight,” I replied.  
For a few seconds, he was silent. Then he reached up, and pulled his cowl back, revealing the blue eyes of Bruce Wayne, playboy millionaire.  
“What do you intend to do with this?” he asked, quietly.  
“Nothing,” I shot back immediately.  
He stared at me. “Why?”  
“Because you do more good than harm, in the long run, and because I know you’re only doing what’s right. I can’t fault you for doing the right thing. But I can fault you for not going far enough.”  
“You’ve become just like him. One more killer in the world.”  
“But if I kill a lot of them, there’ll be a lot less, even if I’m the only violent one left.” I leaned back against the wall, and crossed my arms, trying to look relaxed even though my heart was racing. “But I can see we’re not going to agree. So, go; find your evidence, get the police to implicate me, and let them take me to Belle Reve. Because when I get out, I’ll just go back to doing the same thing. And we’ll have this talk every single time.”  
He stood there, staring at me in silence. I found making eye-contact made me uncomfortable, so I glanced away. When I looked back, he was gone.  
Damn. That really is spooky.

Well, the police found me, and barged into my apartment with their swat gear and their big, black guns, and they all surrounded me and pointed their guns at me.  
I just gave them a look, and waited until I saw the mustachioed form of Commissioner James Gordon walk into the apartment, and stare at me.  
I held out my wrists. “I’m under arrest, right?”  
He stared at me for a few seconds, and then directed the swat team out of there.  
Then he pulled up the other, ricketier chair I kept in the apartment, and stared at me.  
“If this was a normal case, I’d let you go,” he said, finally.  
“Thanks?” I said.  
“Batman told me you know more than you should, especially about him.” He leaned closer, and positioned his elbows on his knees. “How much did you know about the Joker?”  
“Not much. I don’t know who he was before.”  
He sighed. “Do you know about-”  
“Barbara?”  
His eyes flashed for a second. “Yes.”  
“I do.”  
“Do you know why he did it?”  
“To hurt you.”  
Gordon sighed, and placed his head in his hands. Then he turned and stared at me.  
“Are you going to tell me who he is?”  
“I told you-”  
“Not Joker. Batman.”  
“Batman?” I shook my head. “No. I won’t betray that.”  
He nodded. “I understand.”  
“You could figure it out, though?”  
“What?” he said, his eyebrows scrunching quizzically.  
“I mean, it is well within your abilities to figure out who Batman is. As far as I know, you just haven’t bothered to do so because of the help he provides.”  
“You’re very well-informed.”  
“I have my ways.”  
We were silent for a few seconds before I sighed and asked, “So, what happens now?”  
“Now?” Gordon sighed. “Normally, I wouldn’t care. God knows I or anyone on the force have wanted to put the clown down years ago. Every man on the task force to capture you was hesitant. But the feds are demanding a proper trial, and several different companies are putting pressure on the GPD to throw the book at you.”  
“Is one of them Lexcorp?”  
Gordon grinned. “You are well-informed.”  
I smiled. “I wasn’t expecting to get away with it.” I held out my hands. “Go ahead and cuff me. Let’s get this over with.”  
Gordon hesitated, but then slapped the handcuffs on me, and we left the building.

The day of court arrived, and I was marched to the stand wearing cuffs on my ankles and arms. They had slapped a choker on my neck that negated my invulnerability, so for the first time in a while I needed to eat and sleep. It was disorienting, but not so much as the looks I was getting.  
They were varied, from admiration to curiosity, but shock was present in all of them. My picture must’ve been in the papers, because everyone recognized me. There wasn’t any pointing or loud noises when people saw me, just stares. Silent, shocked stares.  
The courtroom was much the same. I walked in, and dozens of eyes turned to watch me as I marched directly to the defendant’s desk and sat down. I managed to glance back to the press area, and was happily surprised to note a broad-shouldered figure in glasses, with a note saying he was from the Daily Planet.  
Another glance caught sight of a woman in a business suit, with vaguely Greek features. A man in a brown trench coat, with a fedora on his lap. A blond-haired man in a tweed suit. Next to him was a man in a flight jacket. Another blond man, but with a full beard and long hair. And a kid, oddly enough.  
Wait, no, not oddly. That was Billy Batson.  
And sitting at the back, staring straight at me was Bruce Wayne himself, with his son Damien at his side. I made brief eye-contact with him, but pretty much ignored him in order to not give him away. Of course, much bigger reveals and clues have failed to give him away, but I was trying to get on his good side.  
The honorable someone or something came out and sat down, and she stared at me and said, “Lee, you are hereby charged with the premeditated murder of the criminal known as the Joker. How do you plead?”  
“Guilty,” I said immediately.  
“Damn son,” said one of the jurors.  
The judge raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure?”  
“Definitely. I waited outside Arkham for three months to beat his face in with a crowbar.”  
She raised an eyebrow. “I see. Guilty.” She whacked her mallet against the desk thing (I don’t go to court often) and said “Three months in Belle Reve. Does the jury find this fair?”  
The jurors looked at one another, and one man stood up and said, “The jury finds this just.”  
“Good,” the judge replied. “Case dismissed.” Whack.  
There was immediately an explosion of questions and shouts from the press, and I was escorted out.

The ride over didn’t take long. I was the only one sitting on the prison bus, and when we pulled into Belle Reve it was just me and two guards walking into the dismally gray prison.  
They walked me through the collar, what it means, how it disables my powers and would shock me if I ever tried to leave. I nodded throughout the whole thing, having heard it before in a show, once, and then let them take me into the seedy underbelly of Belle Reve prison, home of the worst scum in the DC universe, and home base of the Suicide Squad.


	2. Belle Reve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I told you it would be a while, but I did write it, mostly because I got sick and this is easier to make than a whole new world.

The process for getting into Belle Reve was long and extensive. Apparently, they’re really paranoid about letting into contraband to a facility known for housing dangerous metahumans. I suppose this explains why they stripped me down, ran me through this weird, silvery machine that sorta looked like an x-ray machine, and then gave me entirely new clothes. Through this entire process, the collar never left my neck, and I could feel chills from the alternating concrete and steel flooring on my bare feet. Thankfully there were only men watching, but at the back of my mind I knew she was perfectly aware of everything that was going on. She would be, of course; the only person more paranoid of metahuman tyranny than Batman was Amanda Waller.  
I’d been keeping up with the DC comics a bit, though it threw me when it went through the new 52. However, I’d learned enough to realize that Amanda Waller could be anyone from an elderly, thin woman to a fat, middle-aged woman to a young, fairly attractive woman, depending on the artist and the media she was put in. However, one thing all of them had in common: she liked to be in control, and she was black. That last thing isn’t as important as the others, but in a government run by mostly old white men, she’d stand out like… a…  
You know what, I’m not going to make any metaphors here, and I’ll just say she’ll stand out.  
However, she’s also known for running this prison, using it as a breeding ground for her Task Force X, dubbed the “Suicide Squad” by anyone with a reasonable idea of what a cool name sounds like. Let’s see… if memory serves, most of the cast from the movie were in the squad, as well as the villain of that movie, the Enchantress, and Killer Frost. I’m not sure what point I’m at in the timeline, however, so it’s best to keep my options open if I have to fight them. I would really rather not have to think about that, because keeping my options open like that promotes the idea I’ll have to fight Solomon Grundy, and that… that thing terrifies me.  
The invasive procedure is done, and a part of me is glad that my world doesn’t have this level of technology. ‘Course, I have to live in this world now, so I’m stuck in a terrible situation anyway.  
Wonderful!  
They take me briefly to my cell, telling me to memorize the number and that I’ll meet my bunkmate soon. Hopefully it’ll be someone who’s only partially crazy, like Icicle Sr. or… actually, there aren’t any good options for me in this kind of prison. I’m just hoping I get a low-level metahuman who briefly got a god complex and was immediately sent to prison by the Flash.  
After showing me to my bunk, they take me to the yard. The work day is over, but they assure me I’ll be broken into it tomorrow. When I get out there, it’s a motley crew of weirdos. There’s a guy with purple skin, another guy with ridges along his back… hell, they’ve got one of everything down here. I don’t spot any of the Suicide Squad, but that’s to be expected, I suppose. Waller wouldn’t want to keep her prized possessions out in the open… wait, no. They’re probably on a mission. And if they’re on a mission, that means I’m safe… for now.  
“Hey, everyone!” yelled out one of my prison escorts. He was a short man with Native American features, and an attitude that would get you sent to the principal’s office. “This is your new inmate. He’s called Lee, and he’s from an alternate universe! Be nice to him!”  
They pushed me in, and shut the gate behind me. Now, I don’t know why he had to introduce me like that, but now everyone in the yard is staring at me. The only natural thing I can do in this situation is skulk over to the weight-lifting equipment, currently empty, and try to blend in.  
Good lord, how much do these guys lift?! There must be 3… okay, I’ve never done weight-lifting. Let me see… okay, 3 45-pound weights on either side, for a grand total of 270 pounds. Man, there really isn’t a lot to do in prison, is there?  
Well, I know I’m not that strong. May as well start lower. I took off four of the weights, leaving me with a ‘mere’ 90 pounds to lift. I sat under the weight, and started to lift.  
The weights stopped. I found myself staring up at a man with a shaved skull, full beard and white skin. He’s frowning at me. My skin grows cold. I need to say something before we get off to a rough start.  
“Can I help you?”  
Crap.  
He grinned at me. “As expected of the man who offed the clown.” He crouched down next to me. “Let me be the first to say ‘congratulations’. You’ve done what everyone here wanted to do for the past decade.”  
I leaned up, and turned to face him. “What are you talking about?”  
He smirked. “Let me tell you something about the basics of prison, first. Have you heard we trade cigarettes in here?”  
“I remember reading it in a book, once.”  
“That ain’t the case anymore. The food’s shit, so we trade Ramen packets.”  
“Seriously?”  
“That’s how it is. And all I’m just saying, all of us in here have been wanting to get the clown out of the way for a long time now. You’ve done what many of us have tried doing. And let me tell you, someone like him? We’ve been trying our damndest, but he’s always one step ahead, always killing them or torturing them. Now, we aren’t exactly at liberty, as it were, to give up our personal Ramen packets… but, since you did just remove a huge player from the streets, our bosses are grateful. You can expect a few packets to show up in your cell. And the rest of us…” his face grew dark, and his eyes gained a haunted, faraway look, “…we all had family affected by the clown. So if you need a favor, you come to us. Anything at all.”  
He stood up, and started to walk away.  
“Wait.”  
He turned. “Yeah?”  
I frowned, wondering how much I should tell him. “I’m going to go after others. The criminals the supers refuse to punish properly.”  
He stared at me, expression unchanging. “Yeah?”  
“Yeah. Starting with the Joker, but moving to bigger targets. Ra’s al Ghul. General Zod. The Reverse-Flash. Everyone who is so irredeemable and corrupt that their death leads to more light than darkness. But I only have on ability. So, if I want to take down these Kryptonians and speedsters, I need as much of an advantage as I can get.” I took a deep breath. “I need to learn to fight. And that means I need to learn to hurt.” I turned to him. “I need you and your friends to beat me, every day. And every other day, fight me. If I’m to take down someone like Superman, pain should not be able to stop me.”  
He whistled. “Damn, you’re serious, aren’t you?” He shook his head. “It ain’t gonna be easy, kid. These guys won’t hold back. You’re gonna have to see the nurse every chance you get.”  
“I’m willing to accept that.”  
He raised his hands. “Hey, your funeral. We can start tonight.”  
“Sounds good. One more thing: what’s your name?”  
He smiled. “Frank Castle. Nice to meet you, Lee. Let me know when you want to get going.” He stalked off to join his group of friends, but I’m no longer focused on him.  
Is it odd that someone in the DC universe has a name like that? I mean, not that Marvel has a monopoly on odd names, but is a coincidence that remarkable likely? Is anything true?  
You know what, that’s none of my concern. For now, all I need to focus on is getting stronger. After that, if there’s time, and I’m not dead yet, then we can see what universe-altering consequences an inmate’s name has.

I only regretted my decision for a little while. The pain from each of our sessions quickly became bearable, and in a short amount of time I was able to hold my own against four guys taller than me. I was covered in bruises near constantly, and I think I broke both my arms at one point. I didn’t let them stop, however, and I learned to use my legs just as well as my arms.  
True to his word, there were several dozen Ramen packets in my cell when I got back there, so I did the only rational thing and rationed them off so I could enjoy myself as much as I could in prison. For the most part, everything went just fine…  
…until the day Floyd Lawton came back to prison.

I found out about it the same morning I awoke in a cold sweat from one of my nightmares. I haven’t mentioned those, have I? I have horrible nightmares about the night I killed the Joker. His laughter, Harley’s crying, the smell of gasoline, it all comes flooding back to me, and I wake up in a cold sweat, with shaky breathing. It’s stupid, but a part of me refuses to see the Joker as anything less than human. And, apparently, I can still feel guilt.  
So, this means I was up early for the day Floyd Lawton came back. He and several other prisoners were marched into the yard and left without another word. Frank grimaced and shook his head. “Those guys,” he muttered.  
“Who are those guys?” I asked. The fight for the day was over, I was just nursing my injuries and sitting with Frank’s group of friends. I’m not sure, but I suspect he and his crew work for Black Mask. I’ve never asked, and they’ve never told me.  
“I don’t know how they connect to each other,” said Frank, “but they leave every so often. That guy there’s Floyd Lawton-”  
“Deadshot, yeah. Does that mean those guys are… Captain Boomerang and El Diablo?”  
“Yeah, good guesses. How’d you know?”  
I shrugged. “They seemed familiar. I mean, with sideburns like that and so many obvious tattoos like that, who else could they be?”  
One of the other guys grunted. “Still kinda freaky how many of the big-leaguers you know.”  
“I do my research.” And I’m worried about what kind of conversation I’m going to have now that Amanda Waller is back.

True to her reputation, I woke up in her office. I’d gone to bed, and just woken up naturally. I didn’t even feel any pinpricks where a needle would make me wake up. And she was just sitting there, her hands folded quietly on her desk. It seems she was the overweight, middle-aged version of this character.  
“You call yourself Lee.” Oh, and she has the voice of the Justice League: Unlimited version. Very cool. “They say you’re from another dimension. Does the United States exist as a sovereign nation over there?”  
“Basically, yeah. Most of our history is parallel, but we don’t have any of the fancy sci-fi or fantasy stuff. We barely have people in tech suits that help them lift more.”  
“Interesting… how much do you know about me? You’re being rather calm.”  
“I just figure it-”  
“And before you lie to me, I can tell when someone’s lying and I don’t like it. If you lie to me, I’ll take it as a desire to be inducted into my task force.” She smiled. “By the expression on your face, you at least know what that means.”  
I started talking before I knew what I was saying. “You’re Amanda Waller. You run Task Force X, known as the Suicide Squad, which is composed of criminals with bombs in their necks that do things for you against enemies of the United States, usually high-profile targets that would throw a fit for being attacked by the US. The bombs are designed to be remotely detonated if they disobey your orders or are captured by the enemy. Anything else?”  
“That’s plenty. You know enough to be dangerous.”  
“What if I swore that I wouldn’t interfere?”  
“As if I’d believe the word of yet another vigilante. If you truly know who I am, you know I’d take care of any possible threats right away.” She leaned forward. “What do you have to say to that?”  
“Are you going to kill me?”  
“How well do you know me?”  
I took a deep breath. I’m already in way over my head, so I might as well spill everything. “You do whatever you can to protect your country, and that’s it. Anything above that paygrade goes to Batman, whom you know extensively and have probably figured out his identity-”  
“I have.”  
“That’s terrifying. But I also know you’re going to try to do the right thing.” I leaned onto her desk, just now noticing the handcuffs on my wrists. “The Spectre sent me here to dish out justice. I’m going to make sure that happens. You, I think, do more good than harm, and you keep the heroes in check, so I’m not coming after you or your squad.”  
“You threaten me now, when I have absolute control over you?”  
“I wouldn’t threaten you, just like you wouldn’t threaten me. If you wanted to kill me, I would be dead. We already know these machines take away my invulnerability, so you already have the means. The question is, why are you keeping an unknown threat alive?” The answer came to me then. “You want to keep an eye on the Spectre.”  
Her eye twitched.  
I grinned at her. “That’s it, isn’t it? The Spectre has been an unknown entity for so long, and now someone with definite connection to him has appeared. Someone who can help you keep an eye on him.”  
“I can neither-”  
“-confirm nor deny? Is that what you were going to say?”  
Her eyes narrow at me. I decide to stop taunting one of the most powerful women in the DCU.  
“Anyway,” I continue, “whether or not that’s what you’re doing, you’re still going to let me live, and do my thing.”  
She says nothing, but her fists clench tighter together. “Yes,” she says through grit teeth.  
“And I vow to leave you and your squad alone. See? No need for cloak and dagger. We understand each other.”  
“Do we? What shall you do with your new life?”  
“Simple. Hunt down the mob bosses in Gotham, to start with. Black Mask and the Penguin are a bit too maniacal, for my taste. After that, who knows? Maybe I’ll kill Doomsday.”  
She smirked. “You have an inflated opinion of yourself.”  
“Hell yeah I do.”  
“By the way, I’d suggest watching your back when you get out of here. Harley was very upset on this last mission for the squad. She’ll probably come after you, soon.”  
Then I blacked out.

I woke up back in my cell, early morning. Work wouldn’t be for another few hours, and I didn’t feel the least bit tired. I was also extremely pissed off.  
That’s where she ends a conversation?! ‘she’s coming for you’? What a bitch! No wonder nobody likes her!  
I hopped off my bunk and, for lack of a better activity, start working out. My arms haven’t been broken in a while, and I can’t pace, so pushups, sit-ups, squats, and pull-ups all come out, and because I’m angry I’m doing a lot of them. After a few minutes of that, I start just punching the cell wall. It’s solid concrete, and it hurts my hands, but it gets my mind off of Amanda and gets it where I need it.  
All this power and knowledge, and I can still be taken out by some punk with a needle. Having the ultimate knowledge about the universe doesn’t help if you have no power. I know this. I’ve met some of the bigger names of the DCU, and yet I’m still insignificant.  
I hit the wall again. Blood splatters the concrete, and I almost feel bone. I have no cellmate, at the moment, so no one’s going to be bothered by my hurting myself. No one cares that…  
I hit the wall again, and despite the dull thud and the protestation from my hands, I know that I didn’t put my all into that punch. I’ve just hit a realization. I’m in the DCU. I’m among the heroes and villains and wonders of my childhood.  
And I’m all alone.  
I slump against the bloody concrete wall. I’m too smart to start banging my head against it, but I really want to.  
I had siblings, once. Five brothers, seven sisters. My mom loved having kids, and my dad loved raising them. She worked, he stayed home. My oldest brother joined the marines, and then became an avid support of LGBT rights when he came out as gay. One of my younger sisters works for the NSA. She travels a lot. We only ever know what time zone she’s in; if she told us more, she’d have to kill us. Or, at least, she would if I was still there.  
What is the point of all this if there’s no one to share it with? I’m alone. The other prisoners at least have visitor’s day to look forward to. Me? Nobody. There’s nobody here from my old life.  
For a second, I can hear someone moaning loudly. Then I realize that someone is me. My face is stained with tears. My god, I’m crying. I shouldn’t be crying. Superheroes don’t cry. Men don’t cry. I don’t… I shouldn’t…  
…what’s that beeping?  
The explosion rocks the cell before I can form another coherent thought, and then I can’t form another thought until I’m already at the edge of my cell. I don’t know what blew up my cell door, but I know it blew up the other cell doors, as well, and I can see the other prisoners tentatively stepping outside. We all know the guards are highly trained, but five minutes’ freedom is too tempting for some people, and soon everyone’s running around in a riot.  
Except me.  
Because I can stare through the smoke and see the angry woman with the blonde, red and blue hair, carrying a large wooden mallet and staring at me with cold, hard eyes out of pale white skin. She’s also carrying an AR-15 in one hand. I don’t think she knows how to use it properly, but that’s hardly a good point to make when she’s ten feet away. So, I do the only logical thing to do in this situation.  
Turn around, and run in the opposite direction as fast as humanly possible.  
The cell hallway turns right up ahead, moving me out of Harley’s line of fire. She’s not a great shot, and taking away her line of sight allows me to get a head start, and I’ll need it. She used to be a gymnast, and she’s very strong, and I am out of shape and fat. Well, not technically true, as I was lighter back home, but here I’m just a bit chubbier than average-  
Gunshots, and “You killed puddin’!”  
Must go faster.  
See, I’m not just running, though heaven knows I would very much like to leave this situation. There’s a room here in Belle Reve, see, and I’ve been in it a few times. It’s built as the housing space for all the mystical junk that prisoners come in with, and while it’s harmless for the most part, there is a very specific effect of the room that I really want to enable. Well, two. First, it has a large, steel door with a lock on it. The other is that it prevents combustion.  
I’m turning a corner, and I nearly touch the floor with how sharp I take the turn. Down the hall I run, and luckily the door is wide open. I dash through it and trip over the raised doorway.  
I tumble into the room and slam my head against the other wall. The room spins, and my head is pounding. I have to get up. Have to move, have to-  
Cold steel is pressed against my forehead. The room has stopped spinning for me to be able to see Ms. Quinn with the rifle pressed against my forehead. “I loved chasing you,” she says with a feral grin. “I loved that waddle run you did.” And she pulls the trigger.  
The gun clicks, and the room’s lights turn red as the door slams shut, locking as it does.  
I grin back. “You should do your research,” I say as I stand. “Now you’re trapped in here with me, with no gun. It’s only a matter of time before the guards pick you up.”  
She stares at the gun. “Okay,” she says. She flips the gun around, and cracks me in the head with the stock.  
I see stars, and then I’m on the ground. She places a foot on my back, and presses down. Damn, she’s heavier than she looks. The gun clatters next to my head.  
“Pick it up,” she says. “So I can say it was a fair fight.”  
I cough and spit out a tooth. The boot is gone from my back. I stand up, but don’t bother to grab the gun. “Hardly seems fair,” I say, wiping the blood from my mouth. “Going after a guy with a gun.”  
“Aw, you afraid of a little girl like me?” She makes a pouty pose. A part of my brain that doesn’t care if I live or die notes she looks adorable.  
“That,” I say, raising my fists, “is definitively sexist.”  
I see stars again, and I’m up against the wall. The mallet is being pressed against my chest. She’s back to being angry.  
“Why’d you do it?” she asked. There’s tears in her eyes. The mallet slams into my chest, and I can feel bones breaking. “Why’d you kill Mistah J?” Wham. “Even the Batman didn’t have a problem with him livin’!”  
For the next few minutes, I am hit again and again with a hundred-pound mallet. Apparently, the guys in the yard were holding back, because this hurts like hell. She knows enough about anatomy to not break anything, not yet, but everything hurts. My god, it hurts.  
And then, she stops. I’m on the ground again, blood dripping from my mouth. I can barely breathe.  
“Do you regret it?” she asks. “Or did you hate him just as much as everyone else?”  
I push myself to my feet. My legs are shaking, and I can barely stand. All I can try to do is talk her down. “I knew what he did,” I said. “I knew his kill count was in the thousands. I knew he didn’t deserve to live.” Apparently, I am an idiot who doesn’t know how to live. She’s raising her mallet again. “And yet…”  
She hesitates.  
“I have nightmares about his death,” I say. “Most every night, I see his dying face, and a part of me wants to undo what I did, to make the entire world forget. I don’t regret killing him, no. But I do regret that I have to deal with the consequences of killing him.”  
“That’s standard,” she says, her voice faraway. “Human often relive traumatic moments. Treatment includes certain drugs and talking through the traumatic memory.”  
“Heh. You’re a smart lady. You should be a psychologist.”  
She smiles at that, and there’s an awkward pause while we stare at each other, alarms blaring in the background. I draw a breath and decide to do something decidedly dangerous.  
“Your real name is Harleen Quinzel. You were the oldest of four children and the only girl. You dated a boy named Bernie Bash, who committed a murder in the name of your love. You went to college for veterinary science and biology, but you transferred out because your boyfriend from when you were younger got you interested in criminal psychology. You, at one point, possessed a Sinestro Corps ring. You are a fan of Wonder Woman and have a crush on both Batman and Bruce Wayne.”  
She’s dropped the mallet. At least she won’t hit me with it, anymore. “H-how did you know all that? Why are you telling me this?”  
“I’m establishing my credentials,” I said, standing just a bit straighter. I can feel my back creaking from the wounds I’ve accrued. “so that, when I tell you this, I have some credibility: the Joker didn’t love you, in the end.”  
Her eyes have glazed over. “What?”  
“Maybe there was a time, long ago, when he loved you, but not anymore. By the time he died, he was a ruthless, absurdist nihilist and narcissist. He only cared about two things by the time I killed him: Batman, and making Batman laugh. If he ever loved you, his obsession swallowed that up.”  
“No,” she says weakly. “He… I needed him. He needed me.”  
“He manipulated you into needing him. You don’t. You are a strong, smart woman with more potential than he ever had, on his good days.” I grab her shoulders, and now I am about to do something even dumber than before. “You are not alone.” And then I hug her.  
A part of me is screaming to kill her, somehow. The apathetic part of me is noting that she feels very soft. The rest of me is trying to see if she’s responding to this.  
For a few seconds, she merely stands there, stiff as a board. Then sobs rack her body, and she’s holding me – urk! – tightly. It isn’t long before neither of us have the strength to stand, and when the guards find us, we’re both on our knees, holding each other. She because she’s emotionally distraught, and me because I no longer have the strength to stay awake. As the guards came in with special weapons for the mystical room, the room went black, and everything faded away.


	3. The End of Gang Warfare

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to the 23 people who've read this story, and to the one person who gave me kudos. I don't know how I'm going to handle being famous.

I was released from Belle Reve early, due to the failing of the security to protect one of their charges and them not wanting me to sue. Frankly, being released early was better for everyone, because the moment they turned off the dampening collar, my wounds healed almost instantly. Apparently, I had a hyperactive healing factor, as well as invulnerability. At least I wasn’t in any danger of dying immediately, but it did leave me questioning whether I’d even die. I’ve read Tuck Everlasting; immortality would absolutely suck.  
They gave me my stuff back after checking that I hadn’t smuggled anything else out. I don’t know what I’d get in prison that I’d want to keep. A lot of the prisoners had left me alone outside of the training because, as they said, ‘everyone had someone who was affected by the clown’. Those that didn’t leave me alone did so because the other prisoners would riot if something happened to me. I didn’t even have a shiv.  
It was almost depressing to be given my normal clothing. An old pair of comfortable jeans. A Spider-Man t-shirt (he’s a comic book character in this universe… go figure). A leather jacket I got from Salvation Army. A pair of old, dark-gray tennis shoes. White socks. Old belt. Cracked wallet. Blunt pocketknife. And a lot of old hand-me-downs and used clothing that I had no emotional attachment to. This was what I had left of my home.  
I tried to ignore these thoughts as I changed back into this clothing.  
Once I was out, I started walking to clear my head. I’d heard rumors that I was going to be met with a mob of reporters asking for a story or the scoop on the man who offed the Joker (and hopefully a few notable faces were amongst them) but because I’d gotten out early, there was no mob. I had time to mull over the next step of my plans. And for that, I’d need to talk to Bruce Wayne.  
The problem facing me was how to get a man with an IQ of 192 to listen to me, who had scored a 98. Apparently, IQ tests aren’t important, but they were a pretty good indicator that Batman was a smart guy, and had probably already thought of these things before.  
The next people I had to go after were the crime lords. People like Bane and Deadshot, despite being terrible people, had their uses. Harley Quinn, Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy and the Ventriloquist had their issues but could be redeemed. People like Victor Zsasz and Professor Pyg (if he was in this universe) were untreatable psychopaths it would be better to kill than to keep. Granted, this universe was an odd amalgamation of almost all the adaptations and comic lines of DC comics, though thankfully it did not include the Amalgam Comics line, because that would be utter barnacles.  
However, I had to go after the most immediate threats, the ones that created new villains by their very presence: The Penguin and Black Mask.  
While they weren’t as overtly threatening as Clayface or Zsasz, they did run enormous criminal organizations that caused people to turn to crime in a city laced with poverty and corruption. With the gangs in constant conflict, normal people would get caught in the crossfire. Some would become victims, and some would be dead. They get angry, join the other side, and the ranks of Penguin’s gang or Black Mask’s gang swell. Not to mention that economic desperation causes most people to turn to crime in the first place. Wash, rinse, repeat.  
However, we could cut off the foundational support the gangs had. If large businesses moved into that neighborhood (peaceably! I don’t want people evicted) it would create jobs, allowing people to get work and steady pay. If whatever business moved in there specialized in hiring ex-cons, all the better. I just didn’t know how to go about it, nor did I have the resources to achieve this.  
I turned a street, leaving behind the larger concrete buildings of the industrial district and moved to the small apartments. I was in the slums, now. There should be large dilapidated buildings and-  
I stopped, then stepped back.  
The apartment buildings around here were well-kept and neat. The paint was recently applied, and several boys were actually painting another complex a nice brown color. They looked like the kind of kids that would hang out in gangs, normally, but instead were patenting. And from the little conversation they were making, getting paid for it, too.  
I glanced around. I was in the slums, that was clear; the old cars and pawns shops confirmed a comic artist’s idea of poorer districts. However, the cars were clean, the shops were kempt and tidy, and the people walking the streets were friendly.  
This confused me to no end. You’d think it would be harder to look this nice on lower budgets. I decided to walk around a bit, seeing if I was looking at the nicer neighborhoods, or the ones getting ready for sale.  
After an hour, I couldn’t find what I was looking for. In fact, all I found were signs of economic growth: construction, new projects and land development. I even found a factory from Wayne Enterprises. Asking questions around (and the workers turned out to be friendly people!) revealed they produced textbooks, cheaply and cleanly, for lower-income students. It seemed a reasonable product to not get attacked.  
I frowned. This couldn’t be right. Where were the economic forces keeping these people in gangs? Why were the Penguin and Black Mask still so powerful? Were they still powerful?  
I needed answers. And since I was already on my way, I knew who to ask those questions of.

It turned out Gotham is A: huge, B: confusing, C: has weird, magical passages that muck with basic transportation. Turns out most everybody carries a carved rune with them that straightens that magical distortion out so you can walk. People pointed me to a magic shop on the corner, which I entered with a little trepidation.  
The shop was lined with glass shelves and metal racks, displaying all kinds of occult imagery and miscellaneous paraphernalia. They were all clearly labeled, however, such as “Truth Humidifier” and “Teleporting Anklet”, so you could see what they do. I had no idea if anything worked, and some of it looked so suspicious (such as a black skull with glowing red eyes, marked “Harmless Paperweight”) that I sought not to touch anything.  
The shop owner stood up from behind his counter as soon as I walked in. “Good afternoon!” he said. He was a tallish (but then, everyone was) man with vaguely foreign features. I’m not an expert on ethnicities (though, given who I am, I should be) but he looked Romanian. He was a little handsome, but not overtly so. “How can I help you?”  
“Yeah, I was looking to get one of those stones? The ones that help with the magic?”  
“Ah, I see. Yes, I shall be a moment.” He drooped behind the counter, and a moment later, as he said, he popped up with a small white stone in his hand, almost completely smooth. “I just need you to touch it. Something will appear that references you. Go on.”  
“Um… how much is it?”  
“Oh, this one’s free. Just take it.”  
“Are you sure? It’d be really useful.”  
“I insist. Just take it.”  
I stared at him. “You’re not just any magician, are you?”  
His left eye twitched. “I don’t know-”  
“You don’t know who I am, do you?”  
“Of course, I do… sir.”  
“Anyone in Gotham would know my face. I’m the man that killed the Joker.” I narrowed my eyes and moved closer to his face. “Who are you, really?”  
His eyes flickered, first with bits of flame, and then they turned yellow and slit like a cat’s. “You’re sharper than the others.” His back erupted into draconic wings, and horns grew from his forehead. “You saw right through this, but it’s too late!” He pulled back and chucked the stone at me.  
It hit me in the face. I didn’t even blink as it fell to the floor. “See, if you knew me, you’d know I was completely invulnerable.” I stared at him. “Who are you, anyway?”  
“I am Zhardon, demon of-”  
“Oh, I see. I just haven’t heard of you. Heck, I didn’t even know the stone was a trap. I really just wanted some navigation. How many people have you captured?”  
“Three!”  
“Cool. Let me just-” I interrupted my own sentence with a punch to his face.  
His face had grown bony by this point, but it looked like he was still mid-transformation, so I felt the satisfying crunch of breaking cartilage. While I’m not any stronger while I’m invulnerable, I don’t have to worry about hurting myself when I hit stuff, so I can punch harder. And since my body isn’t worried about that stuff… well, you know how adrenaline can make you lift a ton and a half?  
Yeah. Don’t have to worry about holding back.  
I hit Zhardon again, and felt my hand go into his face. He screeched in an inhuman voice, his eyes punctured by bits of bone sticking into his sockets. He lashed out blindly at me with his long claws, just grown, and, fortunately, they did nothing to me. I could feel them raking through my shirt. A remnant of my home.  
I saw red.  
I screamed and leaped out him, pinning him to the wall. The next moment, I reared back and kneed him in the groin. Then I grabbed him by his head and slammed his face into the floor, which was concrete.  
He was limping about, now. He didn’t look like he was able to stand at this point, but just to be sure, I walked over to his body, and started mashing his face into the concrete.  
Or I would have, but someone shouted “Confixi sunt in conpedibus!” at the same time as someone else said “Pots gnivom!”  
I froze instantly, and golden chains of light wrapped around my body. I flew backward into the wall, and stayed there with my arms outstretched. I snarled and pulled, but nothing gave and I couldn’t move.  
Two figures stood in the doorway. One was a man with a brown trenchcoat and five days of steady stubble growth. The other was a woman in a black and white outfit with a black cape and fishnet stockings. They both looked ticked.  
“What the bloody hell’re ya doin’?” The man asked.  
My mouth wouldn’t move to respond. I just stared at him with what I hope was sarcasm and frustration.  
“Oh, right, sorry,” said the woman. “Uoy yam evom.”  
“Thanks, Ms. Zatara,” I said when I had the chance. “Now, Mr. Constantine, would you please let me out?”  
“I guess old Bats was right,” said John Constantine, exorcist and petty dabbler of the occult. “’e does know ‘oo we ah.”  
“Of course I do,” I said. “Now, I’m just about finished with this monster here-”  
“Monster?” He laughed, and lit up a smoke as he knelt next to Zhardon’s prostrate body. “Nah, mate, ‘e’s ‘armless. Couldn’t ‘urt a fly if ‘e had a swatter the size of Boston. The magical distortion is ‘is doin’, too.”  
“Really? Well, pardon me for not knowing about that. All I saw was a demon attack me. What would you do if a demon attacked you.”  
“Exorcise it,” said Zatanna Zatara, “or at least try to figure out what it wants. You almost killed the host’s body.”  
A cold shiver ran through me. “Host?” I asked, weakly.  
“So ‘e can learn,” said John. “Bravo.” He finished saying something, and Zhardon’s body knit itself back together. “There, good as new. You’ll be up and about in no time.” He stood and walked over to me. “So, why’d you attack ‘im?”  
“Magic stones. He said they were a trap.”  
“You didn’t have to cast a truth spell on ‘im,” said John to Zatanna. “I don’t want ‘im to spill everything.”  
“I’m right here,” I said. “And she didn’t cast a spell. You two are just heroes, so I thought it would be better to speak as honestly and clearly as possible.”  
“Really? Us” he said in that funny way, with a long “o” sound “as heroes? I dunno where you get your information.”  
“Well, excuse me for being wet behind the ears on that one. I’m a little new at this.”  
“I don’t give a damn about your ears. Why’d you attack Zhardon?”  
“Magic stones, and he attacked me, first. And why did you mention my moist ears at all?”  
His eye twitched. I smirked.  
“See, I knew you didn’t like that word, Mr. Never-Learned-To-Ride-A-Bike.”  
“Blood ‘ell,” he said. “Solutam.”  
The chains broke off from around me, dropping me to the floor. My body was able to move fully by this point, so I didn’t collapse or anything. I just leaned on the counter and tried not to stare at Zatanna’s chest. “So, what can I do you for?”  
“You can start by explaining how you had enough power to go up against a demon. Not a very strong one, mind, but powerful enough for a mortal.” Zatanna raised a hand before I could respond. “And forget about the magic stones. They don’t work; he’s been trying that scheme for years, and all it’s done is provide proper directions.”  
“You mean they actually work exactly as advertise?” I asked.  
“Honest marketing, from a demon,” said John. “The world’s gone to ‘ell.”  
“That’s not funny, John,” said Zatanna.  
I cleared my throat. “I was given invulnerability by the Spectre when he summoned me from my home dimension.”  
John stopped smoking for a second, and coughed on his cigarette for his troubles. Zatanna, meanwhile, stared at me with wide eyes.  
“The Spectre,” she said. “The-”  
“-vengeance of God, wrath on the guilty, and the voice of the Presence, yes, it was him, or a good lookalike.”  
“You know about the Presence,” John said simply. “Well, if the Spectre’s got him doing the vengeance shtick, best not mess with the wanker.”  
“I know what that actually means,” I said.  
“Sure you do, yank,” he said without looking at me.  
“But what does this mean?” asked Zatanna. “He never does anything unless there’s something coming. This isn’t a high enough level of magic to really affect anything, though.”  
“I killed the Joker,” I said. “That has to have some affect, right? I mean, in a parallel universe, when he died, he tried to escape from Hell itself, and succeeded.”  
“That is a disturbing thing to know,” said John, “even for me. But no, Joker was a normal… ish… mortal. People die all the time, and we’re all the same in our souls. Specs wouldn’t care if it was Mother Terresa or another ‘itler. Just judge ‘em and send ‘em out.”  
“I’m aware.”  
“Perhaps he’ll have ripple effects?” suggested Zatanna. “After all, small things can have huge effects.”  
“Perhaps, but if that’s true, then the Voice is behind it, and therefore it’ll have ramifications for good.” Constantine stared down at Zhardon as the demon groaned. “Even if ‘e ‘as no idea what ‘e’s doing.”  
“Well, pardon me,” I said. “I’m new at exorcising demons. I’m also new here. Just this morning, I was dealing with normal circumstances, like crime bosses and gangs.”  
“Crime bosses?” Zatanna asked. “Like who?”  
“Penguin and Black Mask, to name the two I was thinking of.”  
“What about ‘em?” John asked. He was lighting a second cigarette. It was a wonder he didn’t have lung cancer.  
“How do they have so many members? The industrial district looks like it’s doing well-”  
“Magic.”  
“Say what?”  
“You don’t think they employ normal blokes anymore, do ya? It’s magic. Penguin’s got an army of golems at his command.”  
“I didn’t know he was Jewish.”  
“He’s not. They’re Mesoamerican golems.”  
“HOW THE HELL DOES THAT WORK?!”  
Zatanna sighed. “John, stopped torturing the poor kid. The Aztecs made a recipe for animating mud. The Mayans made a spell that can make things look human. It doesn’t take much of a genius to put those two together. Barely any of Penguin’s goons are human anymore.”  
“Same with the masked bloke,” said Constantine. “’is mask’s enchanted to take control of people’s minds. They become brainwashed to serve his will.”  
“Oh, I see,” I said. “How are the golems powered?”  
“They’re attached to Penguin,” said Zatanna. “If he dies, they crumble. The Aztecs believe their king was divine, so they also believed that an army brought about by his life force would last forever.”  
“’Course, they didn’t know it could be passed on,” said Constantine. “It allowed the Aztecs to have an army for generations of kings.” He paused. “Zatanna, we do seem to be remarkably easygoing with this man.”  
“I had noticed that,” she said. “What’s going on? Is he using magic?”  
“There’s no signs of spells coming off of ‘im. Altough…” he waved his hands, and golden circles appeared. “Quid magia.” He frowned, and stared behind the counter where I was standing.  
The Truth Humidifier was plugged in, chugging at full bore. It projected steam a couple inches into the air that turned invisible as it went higher. It was also, thankfully, silent.  
“Blood ‘ell,” he muttered, placing magical circles around the shop. “’e’s using one of the devices here.”  
“I’m glad it worked,” I said simply. “Now, I want to be plain with you two while I can be so honest: I’m going to kill everything that’s evil in this universe. I may need to travel to Hell eventually, but for now, that involves villains that keep causing havoc and mayhem. Thank you both for your help, and goodbye.”  
“Why are you doing this?” Zatanna asked. “We’re the good guys.”  
“I’m aware,” I said. “You just have an unreasonable rule about never killing. I didn’t want to leave without making sure we see eye to eye.”  
“She has the rule,” said Constantine, “and most of the blokes in capes. Not me. Some bastards need to be offed.”  
I blinked. “Well… good. If you’ll excuse me, then, I need to get to the Iceberg Lounge.”  
“What’s there?” Zatanna asked. “What are you planning to do?”  
“The Penguin,” I replied as I rounded the counter, “and I’m going to kill him.”  
“Wait.” Constantine stood there, smoking his cigarette and looking contemplative. Then he walked over, and said “Pervia nulli animum tuum.” A purple glow settled on my head, although I didn’t feel any different. “There. Your mind won’t be affected by spells, anymore. If you’re going on about this mad business, I don’t want you affected by mind-control spells.”  
“Not a bad idea,” said Zatanna. “Ecalp a reirrab revo sih dnim.” Another purple glow, darker and bluer. “I disagree with your methods, but if you’re on our side, at least you’ll be protected.”  
“Thanks,” I said. “Now the only thing that can hurt me is my emotions.”  
“Bloody awful things,” said John.  
“As if you would know,” Zatanna shot back.  
“Ooh, little fire in yeh today.” He grinned. “By the way, what’s your name?”  
“Lee,” I said. I shook his hand.  
“You don’t look like a Lee,” he replied.  
“I get that a lot.”  
Constantine grinned and walked out. Zatanna told him she needed a moment, and let him go. Then she turned to me. “Lee’s not your real name,” she said.  
“No,” I replied. “But it’s good enough for one. I don’t know who can use my True Name, so I’ll err on the side of paranoia.”  
She stared at me. “Be careful on this quest, Lee. People who go out to kill have their hearts blackened by the act. You could very well be damning yourself by these actions.”  
I smiled at her. “I know. It just… it seems better than letting these kinds of evils continue. I’d rather I was damned than another thousand people died.”  
She frowned. “Is it really worth your soul?”  
“I’d ask your friend the same thing.”  
Her frown deepened, and turned angry. “Fine, then. I’ll give you a lift. Tropelet ot Dlawso Topelbboc's moor ni eht Grebeci Egnuol.”  
The room vanished in a flash of white light.

I was in the office of the Penguin. He was sitting in his chair, at his desk, with nobody around. He and I stared at each other for a moment, and then he said “What th-”  
I didn’t wait another second. I leaped over the desk and slammed his head into the ground. Then, for good measure, I slammed it a few more times until he stopped wriggling. I sat there for a few second, just breathing. My heart rate doesn’t need to increase for adrenaline, but I still got excited about killing another…  
Well. Let’s just put those thoughts in the back of my head.  
I heard screams from outside. I opened the door to the office just a crack, and saw people running, screaming, from the icy blue interior of the lounge. Scattered about them were large piles of mud and dirt in suits. The… I hate the term, but the “Mesoamerican golems” seemed to have collapsed from Penguin dying. Just like Zatanna and John told me.  
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the second magical device; it had been labeled “The Pocket Watch of Geniality”. I wasn’t sure if it would work like I thought, but it made Zatanna and John relaxed around me. I’d almost broken the spell when I mentioned John’s soul, but thankfully it’d held.  
I didn’t really want to use this much magic. You never know the cost for magic like DC comics. I mean, when it comes to books in the Cosmere, you know exactly what magic is costing you, but here it’s wild and untamed, and there’s very few, if any, rules. Spectre wasn’t watching out for me, so I had to be as careful with my soul as I would be normally with my body.  
There was one more use for the pocket watch, however.  
A cursory glance around the office revealed an assortment of umbrellas. Testing each out one at a time revealed an even wider assortment of uses, from parachutes and rocket launchers to a partial cocktail bar and gas. The gas cylinder was, luckily, empty. Finally, though, I found one that had a long, sharp blade on it, and I tested it was sharp by accidentally slicing off the edge of Penguin’s desk with it. From there, it was a simple matter of finding a leather bag, and then…  
Ugh.  
You know, this is the part I’m going to hate for the rest of my life. I grimaced, and leaned down to take the sword, and start cutting off-  
Hurk.  
I start-  
Blergh.  
I… ugh… I cut off his head.  
The process is a lot messier than I thought, and if it hadn’t been for the fact I hadn’t eaten in three weeks I would’ve vomited right there. Dry-heaving, though? Apparently something I can still do.  
With the… object in my possession, I spent the next few minutes dumping out a leather satchel I found in that room. Penguin’s head, luckily, fit inside, and you could zip it shut with only his bulbous nose sticking out, and since it’s cartilage you could push it back-  
We would like to take a moment and skip past the part where I close the bag, ask for directions, and carry it to the office building of Black Mask’s gang. It was entirely disgusting, more than a few times I bumped into stuff with the bag and almost hurled, and at one point I played a game of keep away with three elementary school kids who thought it would be fun to see what was in the bag. It would not be fun.  
Eventually, though, I found myself at the offices of Black Mask, a generic office skyscraper that, from experience, I knew contained a great deal of black-market luxury. Hopefully everyone was in on it.  
I walked into the building and straight to the front desk. I didn’t know the lady’s name, but she looked like a Doris, from her glass on a necklace fully of beads, to her pink outfit and to her sharply-sloped nose that could probably cut glass. Like I’d expect a Doris to do, she looked at me over her glasses. “Do you have an appointment?”  
“I’d like to see Black Mask, please.”  
“The boss doesn’t take house calls.”  
“He’ll take me.”  
She sighed. “I’ll try him, but he’s not a pleasant man when he’s interrupted.” She lifted the phone. “Who should I say is calling him?”  
“The man who offed the clown,” I said, “and the Penguin.”  
She stared at me a moment.

The elevator dinged, and I walked out into a luxurious office that had enough thinking space to fill it with Narcissus’ ego. Elaborately carved columns, statues of less-then decent women, and a perfectly arranged Feng Shui that bespoke calm, serenity and rational thinking.  
The mentioned Shui de Feng was offset by the man Black Mask was beating into the carpet.  
I came in towards the end of the rant. It had something to do with shipments and dates and mandatory searches resulting in a net loss of a half-million. The other six guys in black suits stood quietly to the side. They all had ear pieces in and wore black sunglasses, even though it was late afternoon. They were also bigger than one of my brothers, who took up boxing for fun.  
Black Mask glanced at me when I entered. “And who the hell are you?!” he demanded. “Did that bitch let you up here?!”  
“Right, the temper,” I said. “I forgot about that.”  
“Listen, kid, you’ve got about two seconds to explain yourself before I break your face. Who are you, and what do you want?”  
“I’m Lee,” I said, holding up the bag, “and I want to give you this.”  
“At least it’s short,” he muttered. “Wetback! Go get that!”  
One of the bodyguards, an angry-looking Hispanic man, grumbled and walked over to me. “What’s in the bag?” he asked me. There was no trace of a foreign accent.  
“A head,” I replied. “Penguin’s, to be specific.”  
“Sure,” he replied. “And I’m Batman’s moth-” The rest of that sentence was interrupted when he unzipped the bag and immediately threw up.  
“Yep,” I said. “It’s pretty disgusting.”  
“Huh,” said Black Mask. “Fine. Bring it here.”  
I glanced at the man on his hands and knees, dry-heaving. “Even if-”  
“Not him! You! Get up here!”  
I shrugged, and walked over to Black Mask. He’d walked away from the corpse on the ground and was sitting at his desk. The other goons (probably brainwashed) had moved to stand around him. I set the bag on his desk, and sat in the chair on the other side.  
“Did I say you could sit down?” he asked me, reaching for the bag.  
“You were about to,” I replied.  
He glared at me, and opened the bag. Then his black mouth broke into a wide grin. “Well, I’ll be damned. You actually clipped the bird’s wings. Color me impressed.” He sat back in his chair. “Why’d you come to me?”  
“It’s a gift,” I replied, “for the most powerful man in Gotham. A gift, and a proposition.”  
He waved his hand, and the goons walked away, leaving the two of us in his office. “What do you propose?” he asked.  
“Have you ever heard the story of Ehud?”  
“Never had time to read fairy tales.”  
“Well, you’ll want to listen to this one. In the book of Judges, there’s this king of a people called the Moabites. He invades the country of Israel and takes everyone captive, and they suffer. Then, a left-handed man named Ehud comes to this king bearing gifts. The king accepts him, and sends the man away, but partially out of the palace Ehud turns back, and says he has a secret message. When the king sends away his guards, Ehud says ‘I have a message from the Lord for you’ and stabs the king with a sword he had strapped to his right thigh, where nobody thought to check him. Then he takes control of the Israelite army and frees them from Moabite tyranny.”  
“How heroic. What was the point of that?”  
“There’s one key difference between then, and right now.” I smiled at him. “I am not left-handed.”  
Then I picked up his desk (pure mahogany) and bashed him in the face with it.  
His body ragdolled across the room and slammed into the wall. I heard bones breaking and snapping, and he let out a groan that the goons must’ve heard. I have very little time: they’re just brainwashed. I don’t want to hurt them.  
I picked the desk back up and slam it down on his body. Besides the crunching sounds, there is also a sickening “splat” from where his body was, and blood splurts around the room, completely throwing off the Feng Shui. I stand there with the desk on his body, waiting for any sign he’s alive. No breathing. No twitching. His hands are still from underneath the desk.  
I sighed, and pushed the desk off his body. I remove the mask from his face, and break it apart. A wave of magic hits me like a sudden gust of wind, and the color in the room fades, just a tiny bit. Satisfied that my work is done, I stand up and take the emergency exit and the fire escape out of here.  
The way I tried to kill them was without seeing their faces. The Joker’s face haunts my nightmares enough that I don’t want to look at these people, much less admit they are people, for fear of what I’ll see. And, for the most part, I succeeded. Except that, for one single second before I killed them, they both had the same look in their eyes. That single moment of fear, staring at me like I was the coming reaper.  
They had both been scared of me. And now I had two more faces to add to my nightmares.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think, in chapter 4, is where I'll introduce more characters. Stay tuned.


	4. Alternately Parallel

I took a brief stop to cover my tracks in Black Mask’s office. First, I wiped down the desk for fingerprints, or at least started to. The whole thing was too tedious, so I ended up just setting the office on fire. Then I made my way down to the security room, which was strangely empty. The door leading in was ajar, as well. Maybe everyone’s just getting out of dodge because I’m here? Perhaps, but I’d like to think I don’t have that much of a reputation yet.  
The building safely on fire, and everything that could record safely smashed (I’m not a tech guy) I found myself walking out the front doors. There were some concerned citizens staring up at the fire, and nobody paying attention to the front entrance. It was a snap to just walk away and meander into the dark.  
I was then hit in the face with a blast of light.  
No one was around to see it, so I rocketed down an alley into a brick wall. I felt the bricks give a little, but they held firm. I stood up and brushed off the dust from my clothing. “Who the hell did that?!” I yelled out.  
A figure stepped into the alley, silhouetted from behind by the city lights. It was a woman with short-cropped hair. I couldn’t see any other features on her face, but she had a glowing blue light coming from her hand. Specifically, a glowing cyan ring on her right middle finger.  
“Who are you?” I asked. “And why do you have a Blue Lantern ring?”  
“Blue Lantern?” she questioned. “No. Not blue. Cyan. Get it right.”  
“Well, pardon me for not knowing my colors. I didn’t even know there was a cyan power battery.”  
“There isn’t,” she said. The ring grew brighter, and I could see some features; she had a large, obvious nose and intense, dark eyes. “It’s the Starheart from my universe.”  
“Starheart? Like…” The second part of her sentence hit home. “Wait, you’re from another universe, too?!” So many questions. “How did you-”  
“I came to stop you from implicating this universe’s version of you.”  
“Beg pardon?”  
“You don’t think they have higher-functioning means of crime-fighting? They’d be able to reconstruct what happened in that room easily, and point back to you. If not you, then back to your alternate self, who’s done nothing wrong. Do you really want to get yourself arrested just because you didn’t want to pay for your crime?”  
“I understood that sentence, and no, I don’t. What do you suggest I do about it?”  
“I’ve already taken care of it; the top floor of that building is currently in orbit.”  
A moment of silence. “Tha-”  
“I didn’t do it for you.” She stepped backward out of the alley, a cyan aura surrounding her. “I did it for my friends. They’re others, like me. Like you. And if you don’t want to draw attention to them, you’ll do as I say. Follow me.” The ring glowed brightly, and she lifted off into the night sky.  
I had no idea how I was going to follow her. But I did what I hoped I’d never have to do in this business: improvise.  
Think think think! I’m invulnerable, I have super-strength; what can I do with that? Can I climb walls? Kind’ve, but I have to punch holes in them. How do I-  
Oh.  
Duh.  
I crouched and leaped into the air, my super-powered legs propelling me further into the air than an Olympic gymnast. It also launched me sideways into a brick wall.  
When I slammed into it, it flipped me around until I was upside down. I ended up back in the alleyway with my head in a trash can and three scared cats who ran away screeching. I sat up and glared at the wall.  
“This is your fault!” I yelled at it, more for stress-relief than anything else. Then I realized something: I was trying to think like Alex Mercer, when I should be thinking like Mario.  
I leaped sideways at the wall, and when I felt myself pressing against I leaped off it the other way. Back and forth, like a pinball I leaped until I reached the rooftop. I grabbed onto the gutter and hoisted myself up. It’s a good thing for Gotham’s economic prosperity, because the gutter wasn’t rusty at all, and held my weight enough to swing up.  
I glanced around as quickly as I could. It was difficult to pull out one specific glowing blue – pardon, cyan – light in the middle of a couple thousand in Gotham, at night, but luckily, we were in the business district. Picking it out was like looking for a sword in a haystack rather than a needle. It soon became apparent where my Cyan Lantern was.  
I hate that name, by the way.  
She was heading… over thataway, towards the larger buildings. I wasn’t in Boy Scouts much, so I can’t navigate at night. She was flying in a straight line, so it was easy (ish) to follow her as I leaped from building to building.  
In the movies, the leaping doesn’t feel quite like real life. Granted, I had invulnerable knees, so I could land with fear of breaking bones, but it’s hard to aim when you’re leaping off with only a split-second of forethought. I ended up crashing into stuff more often than landing properly, but thankfully I didn’t feel the glass I broke or the metal I dented when I landed.  
Through it all, the mysterious cyan woman flew in a straight line, fast enough that I was panicking to keep up the entire time, but never enough that she flew out of sight. I had to keep leaping, bouncing and crashing (mostly the last one) in order to keep up. Most of my clothes ripped, and with every tear and popped seam I got just a bit more pissed off.  
And then I had scaled Wayne Tower, and I was above her.  
All the anger I felt, all that rage at being treated like some kind of puppet, swelled up at once, and I leaped from Wayne Tower and aimed for her. She didn’t see me as I slammed into her and sent her into an erratic tailspin.  
She screamed something at me, but I wasn’t listening. I was holding onto her legs as we spun. She was attempting to kick me off. It wasn’t hurting me, but I was losing my grip on her legs, so I grabbed ahold of her belt and hoisted myself higher. Now if I could just-  
Another blast of cyan light hit me in the chest, and I felt the belt creaking from strain. I reached up again and grabbed onto her jacket, and pulled myself level with her spinning face.  
“Let go!” she yelled at me. “You’re going to get us killed!”  
“Get you killed,” I corrected. “I’ll be fine.”  
“Oh, for-” She created a ball of cyan energy, and it pulsed once before projecting out and pushing me away.  
I fell for only three stories and smashed onto another trash can. There were no cats to scare this time, and I was just happy I’d missed the cars. I stood up, my clothes in tatters. I was really pissed off, now.  
She landed on the street, the cyan light illuminating the cars and buildings around her. She looked ticked. “What the hell is your problem?!”  
“What’s my problem?! You’re the one who shot me!”  
“I wasn’t trying to kill you!”  
“If I hit you with a wiffle bat rather than a regular bat, you’d still be upset!”  
“What the hell is a wiffle bat?!”  
“ARghsnbjo” was about the sound I made from frustration. “Would you please just tell me what you want?! I’m already confused enough about how you have a second Starheart.”  
“I don’t have a second Starheat. I have my version of the Starheart.”  
“Okay, cool! Parallel universe, like me except closer to this Earth. Great! Now why did you attack me?!”  
She took a deep breath. “You’re not the only one who came from another universe,” she said at last. “There are two others, besides me. And if you know the right methods, we’re easy to find, so we keep a low profile. But you… you’re like a beacon. You’re going to lead people to us sooner or later.”  
“Why is that a problem?” I asked. “You’re obviously powerful. You’ve been given the power of the Starheart, which means you can make anything that comes to mind, and the only weakness is wood, which-”  
“Wait, what?” Her eyes were wide. “How did you figure that out?”  
“I’ve read a lot of stuff.” I blinked. “Did you… not know that?”  
She placed her hands on the side of her head and sat on the curb. “So it works… but not on wood.” She stared at her ring. “That’s why it kept failing?”  
“Did you charge it, as well?”  
“What?”  
I stared at her. “How long have you had the Starheart?”  
“A long-”  
“Don’t lie to me.”  
Her lips formed a tight line. “Three months. I got it when I came here.”  
“Okay, fine. The ring is an extension of the lantern it’s attached to. The ring should have a miniature version of the lantern on the front. May I look?”  
She held out her hand, but kept it in a fist to prevent me from removing the ring. I ignored the insult (or compliment, I suppose) and stared at the ring.  
Unlike Alan Scott’s ring, which was an old train lantern, this one was a mining lantern. It had those little wires on it that hold the glass bulb in place, the handles down either side and a hoop on top for holding from the top. Perhaps her Alan Scott had forged it differently; perhaps it wasn’t Alan Scott at all.  
I let go, and she pulled her hand back. “Okay, the lantern will look like that, only a bit bigger, about this big.” I held out my hands to about the size of a watermelon. “At least, that’s this world’s version. I think the ring can sense it, and it might be pulling power from it remotely, which would explain its erratic power level. That is what was erratic, right?”  
“That’s right.” She stared at me. “Why are you helping me?”  
“I…” Why was I helping her? She had attacked me, and then forced me to chase her down to get answers. It’s not like I was friends with her. On the other hand, I couldn’t be hurt, and she may have just been scared. Or…  
…oh, my god. It’s a superhero meeting. We didn’t bother to communicate with each other about our intentions, and we got in a fight with each other, despite being reasonable adults with the ability to think and communicate critically. We could have just talked to each other.  
I took a deep breath. “I think we got off on the wrong foot, and I want to make it right.” I held out my hand. “I go by Lee. What’s your name?”  
She stared at my hand, and then grasped it in a handshake. Her grip was firm, but not painful. “I go by Cain. No one wanted to call me ‘Cyan’.”  
“They thought it was too pretentious?”  
She laughed, and smiled. She had a nice smile. “Exactly it, yes. I went with something similar to my desired name, but with a bit of an edge. What made you choose Lee?”  
“It’s obviously not my name. If I chose something that looked like it could be my name, eventually I’d slip up and go by my real name. It’s so out of place that I’ll notice it when it’s used.”  
“What will you do when you meet an actual Lee?”  
“I’ll be very confused.”  
She smiled again. “So… you’re saying we should be able to find my battery with the ring?”  
“We should, yeah. I warn you, though: it’s a very powerful artifact. If someone has it, they don’t want it to be found.”  
“How powerful are we talking?”  
I frowned, trying to come up with a scale. “Felix Faust, Circe, R’as al Ghul and Vandal Savage would all be more than happy to get their hands on it, and kill to do so. It’s enough of a threat to be used against Superman, General Zod, and can make powerful enough to go toe-to-toe with Green Lantern. And, if Darkseid’s army were to invade, it would be a weapon capable of making him go less easy on you.”  
Her eyes had widened over the course of my speech. “It’s that powerful? I just knew it could make me fly, and shoot laser beams, but it never lasted long enough before it fizzled out or stopped working for some reason.”  
“That’s either the wood, or the low charge. The ring doesn’t affect wood at all; beams, trees and stumps are all beyond your ability to touch, so if someone comes at you with a wooden club-”  
“I’m screwed.”  
“-you’ll have to be creative. The ring is capable of making any shape that your will is strong enough to make. Simply not affecting wood is no excuse to be screwed when attacked by a thug with your weakness. Even Superman has ways around kryptonite. Also, your ring should be able to protect you from everything else below a certain power threshold, and since it’s magic, that means it also has magical properties to it that you can exploit.”  
“You seem to know a lot about the Starheart. How is that?”  
“Maybe as we get to know each other, I’ll tell you the whole story, but it’s not something really believable. Now, we’ve blathered enough. You want to come into your own, right? You want to be able to go into space, right?”  
“Into space?! Why didn’t you tell me that sooner?! Let’s go get this power battery!” She was on her feet before she thought to ask, “How do we find it?”  
I frowned. “Well, the ring and the lantern have a connection, so at a higher charge one can trace the other, but that might not work. Since it’s been getting ambient energy from the lantern, the ring should light up brighter when we’re getting closer. So, just… make it glow steadily, and we’ll walk in the direction of the glowing lights.”  
“Alright.” She held her hand out, and the ring started glowing, not very brightly but not too dull, either. She took a few steps, and the ring’s light faded. She turned around and walked in the direction of the brighter light.

We walked for a while. I’ve played a few games where you follow a light that blinks stronger as you get closer, but it’s a lot harder to do in real life, because things like buildings get in the way. We’d often had to circle around to get past a bad, and in one case we had to climb straight up a building due to the way around being too far out there.  
As we were walking, it occurred to me that I should probably tell Cain about the oath. “Hey Cain?”  
“What is it?”  
“You should know something about the lanterns… about all lanterns, really.”  
“Go ahead. I’m going to keep following the light.”  
“Okay. Well, these lanterns… there’s usually an oath to go with these things. For the Corps, it’s a generic ‘beware my power’ line, but for Alan Scott, this universe’s bearer of the Starheart, he made it himself, and it eventually bonded to his lantern. If that’s happened with your Starheart, too… you may find yourself swearing an oath to it. An oath you could be bound by.”  
She stopped walking, and stood still. I hadn’t been watching where we were going: we were standing in front of a plain wooden door, and her ring was glowing brighter than ever. “I could?” she asked quietly.  
I nodded. “I don’t know what that oath is, but you’d be bound to it, probably magically, for as long as you held the ring. You get a lot of power for it, but that’s the price you’d have to pay.” I frowned. “Then again, the Starheart made a promise of life, death and power, in that order. Maybe the cycle will continue, and you’ll get something else.”  
“It’s better than nothing,” she said. She pushed the door open, and, after a moment, I followed her in.  
It looked like a bookstore from the outside, but from the inside it looked like a much larger bookstore, one with observatory windows, tall columns and a domed stone ceiling. Sitting in the middle of this room was a stone dais with a glowing cyan lantern on it. Standing in front of it was a figure in purple clothing, with a Fu Manchu mustache.  
“Oh, crap,” I said. “It’s Felix Faust.”  
“Who?”  
“Only an awful wizard in a world of awful wizards. He’s done… you know what, the list is too long.” I frowned. “I wonder why he’s not looking at us, though. Normally, he’d have noticed both of us long before n-”  
“Ah, I see you’ve arrived.”  
My throat clenched up. I didn’t need to breathe, so I was okay, but I was worried because I heard Cain get the wind knocked out of her. Both of us slowly rose into the air and floated over to where Felix was standing so nonchalantly.  
He grinned at me, a manic yet calm smirk on his face. Up close, I realized his features were more Korean than Chinese, which was a minor thing in the face of almost-assured annihilation of my new companion. “So, you’re this mysterious ‘Lee’ who killed the clown and is making such a ruckus among the heroes of this world. I must say-”  
“Must you?” I managed to get out.  
He frowned at me. “What?”  
The pressure on my throat lessened, and I heard Cain gasping. “I said ‘Must you?’ You don’t need to start up your monologue on my account. Just try to kill me, and be done with it. Then, I’ll take my shot at you.”  
He stared at me, and thrust Cain aside. She ragdolled into a bookcase, and I had to force myself not to wince as her head struck wood. She stopped moving, but I could hear her breathing… I thought.  
“Who are you to speak to me this way?” Faust asked me. “I am-”  
“Yes, yes,” I said. “Felix Faust, ancient wizard, master of sorcery and the dark arts, very good.”  
“Fool! The world trembles at the mere mention of my name!”  
“Well, actually, the world has the Justice League, so that’s seven people who don’t ‘tremble at the mere mention of your name’, and they know at least a dozen people each who won’t, either. So… at least ninety-one people in this world don’t tremble.”  
He stopped there. “Um… I’m… I’m not sure where to go with that.”  
“Well, it’s simple, really.”  
“Is it?” He stepped closer to me, and ran his stupid creepy long fingernails along my chin. “And, pray tell, where do I go with that?”  
“Well, straight to hell, right after this.”  
“What?”  
A burst of cyan light exploded from the dais, knocking Felix and me backward. I was already in the air, so I flew a bit further. Felix was so shocked by this development that he was just sitting on the ground, staring at the lantern, and at Cain.  
I was right! She was breathing! Thank G- Thank the Presence!  
Her eyes were a brilliant cyan color, so bright they were like flashlight beams. The ring on her hand was practically a cyan fire, and her clothes were… gosh. I looked away for a second so her clothes could regenerate into her uniform.  
And what a uniform! I recognized the cape: long-flowing, with a high collar on top connected by a gold chain. It was black, though, and the inside was a glowing cyan color. Her shirt was long-sleeved, but a gold color, and she wore military-issue pants the same cyan as the inside of her cape. And on her face was a black domino mask, with her glowing blue eyes peering out from underneath it.  
Then she spoke, and she spoke in her voice and another voice, something far older.  
“When night is day, and good has fled / when heroes have turned cruel or dead / when demons laugh and devils run / the Starheart will still have its fun!”  
…apparently, this other version of Alan Scott was a little unstable.  
Bugger.  
She turned and stared at the two of us, an aura of cyan light surrounding her. “Faust!” she said in her double voice. “We know you! You were trying to access the power in Starheart! You did many cruel things to us!”  
A giant fist formed from the ring, and grabbed ahold of Faust. I heard him gulp as he was hoisted into the air.  
“We do not appreciate that?” she said with a snarl and a grin, somehow. She drew back the giant fist and threw Faust across the room. I heard bookshelves breaking from the force of it, but somehow, the magician was up a second later, flying on a platform made of purple magic and arcane runes.  
“You’ve finally revealed your true power!” he said. “Good! I can see what you’re capable of before I rip it from your cold, dead corpse!”  
“You can try!”  
Now, I’ve seen wizard duels on TV, read about them in books and watched them unfold in the comics, but this… this was a wizard duel. Spells of all kind flew from Faust’s fingertips, and Cain’s ring created dozens of constructs from spears to construction equipment. Hundreds of different kinds of debris littered that room, and some of it hit me. Granted, I wasn’t hurt, but I was too distracted by the awesome fight to care.  
And then Felix slipped, and the platform caused him to drop five feet. It’s not a lot, but it’s enough to take advantage of with the kinds of powers these guys had, but Cain didn’t. Faust caught himself in time, and just stared at her. She was smiling.  
In that moment, both of us realized she was just toying with him.  
“Are we done?” she asked. “Alright, we’re done.”  
She created generic cyan constructs that trapped Felix in place, and then a giant spear twelve feet long. “Say goodbye, master magician!” she said, and threw the spear at Faust.  
It would have run him through, if I hadn’t stood there with a wooden shield.  
I’d found it on the walls, and besides the fact it was whispering to me and trying to put some kind of talons into my arm, it was ordinary wood, just three boards with two leather straps on one side. The spear struck it with all the force of a feather, leaving all of us with a moment of silence.  
“You can’t kill him,” I said.  
“What?!” said her two voices. “Who are you to thrust moral complications on me?!”  
“Moral? No! The ring gets corrupted by killing people directly. If you’re going to kill someone, you need” I stabbed Faust with a knife from one of the walls “to do it directly.”  
The lights of life and magic faded from his eyes over a few seconds, and then his body went limp within the constructed walls. These vanished, leaving him to drop, very dead, to the ground. His eyes were still in my mind, but I pushed them aside for the more pressing matter at hand.  
Cain stood in her new costume, examining her arms. “New body, I suppose,” she said, though her deeper voice was overpowering her normal one. She started feeling her hands, arms, shoulders and… ahem, every other part, as if apprising herself. “Not too bad, I suppose. The short hair is a nice touch.”  
“You’re not actually Cain, are you?” I ventured.  
“Hm?” She turned to me, her eyes glowing ominously. “No, I suppose not. Her mind’s a bit at odds with me, but that will-”  
“I know where this is going. The two of you need to share.”  
“What? You must be joking. After months of being trapped, do you think I should share a body with a mortal?”  
I shrugged. “Etrigan could.”  
She stared at me so coldly I though 0K seemed warm. “You did not just go there.”  
“I did. Etrigan shared a body with a mortal for at least four centuries, and it was probably longer than that. They might even still be sharing it.”  
“You don’t know?”  
“I’m not omniscient.”  
She sighed. “Oh, very well. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to take the backseat. It has been a little while since I interacted with humans.” She nodded. “Very well. I shall return control to her.”  
“By the way, what should I call you? I can’t call you both Cain.”  
“That is fair. Starheart is fine, or Star, if you’d like a nickname.” She smirked at me. “This one’s mind is grateful for what you’ve done, but feels no romantic inclinations.”  
“That’s not what I was going for.”  
“Well, you’ve succeeded. Ta.”  
The glow faded from her eyes and soon returned to the normal brown. Now that I got a look at her, Cain had a lot of disparate features. Her hair was dark red, and her skin was black, like someone from Africa, and yet she had the thin lips and nose of Europeans and narrower eyes from what I’d consider Asia. I suppose it wouldn’t be too unusual; features from her Earth could create different ethnicities. I wonder if I should ask her about that?  
“What are you doing?”  
Right, I should probably stop staring at her, first.  
“Just making sure you’re okay,” I said. “I’ve got you a timeshare in your own body in exchange for the power of the ring.”  
She glanced down at her ring, and it made a construct of interlocking rings. “Anything I have the will for?”  
“You could hold a planet together if your will was strong enough.”  
“Huh.” She stared at the domed ceiling of the library. “What do we do, now?”  
“Well, I’d like to meet your friends, but first…” I looked around as well. “I wonder if this place has bedrooms.”  
“What?” She turned to face me. “You can’t be serious.”  
“Why not?” I gestured around the place. “It’s great. Wide open, magically contained and probably can make extra rooms. All I need now is to move my stuff in.” I stood still for a moment. “There, I’m moved in.”  
“You are serious, aren’t you?” she said. “What… what do you think you can do with this place?”  
“Study magic. It’s the one thing I don’t have a good understanding of in this universe. And there isn’t anyone around to object, right?”  
“One bloody exception, mate.”  
Cain and I turned to stare at John Constantine and Zatanna. The former already had a golden circle of arcane runes in front of him, and the latter was chanting something that turned her eyes blue.  
“Now,” said Constantine, “I want you to relinquish the House of Horrors. Willingly.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure what to do about character tags. This story is meant to touch most of the DC universe, and that means the character tag list is going to be massive. Do I just... keep adding them in? Would that be too distracting?  
> Also, thanks for all the hits. It's nice to see people are reading and enjoying this story.


	5. The House of Horrors

Ah, the House of Horrors. A minor DC comics line that printed one-shots about their characters. A pretty minor thing, so it’s no surprise there’s actually a house with that name in the DC universe. I just didn’t think Felix Faust would be in possession of it.  
Cain frowned at the two heroes and her ring flared brighter. “What do you want?”  
“This house, obviously. It’s bound to its master, to obey ‘is every command until ‘e dies, and now ‘e’s dead. Obvious enough.” John hadn’t moved. “It’s full of deep, dark secrets that no one should touch she ‘e cherish ‘is life.”  
“Your phony accent is giving me ‘eadaches.”  
“Ain’t nothin’ phony about it, mate! I’m a true blue Liverpool man, and ain’t nobody gonna say otherwise!”  
“I say otherwise, yankee.”  
“Hey!” Zatanna yelled at me, “there’s no need to be insulting!”  
“Well, that’s debatable,” said John, “but in this case, that was personal. What do you ‘ave to say for yourself?”  
“Nothin’ much,” I replied, punching up my accent to match his, “except that I’d be perfectly willing to hand over the house of horrors.”  
“Oh, is that… so? Oh. What?”  
“…provided you let me access your House of Mystery.”  
“Sure, for afternoon tea and whatnot.”  
“All the time, John.”  
His face darkened. “No. Not all the time, and not ever. I can tell what you’re thinkin’, mate, and this kind of knowledge don’t sit well in your brain.”  
“Well, good thing I’ve got a protective spell on my brain to keep it my own.”  
“Not nearly powerful enough,” said Zatanna. “You’d need the aid of a higher being to keep the knowledge you seek from twisting your mind.”  
“Oh, really? Okay. Now, Cain.”  
A blast of cyan light took both the magicians from the side while they were too distracted to do anything about it. A horde of other cyan constructs roared from her newly-empowered ring, and she charged the two magicians with a fierce war cry. I wondered vaguely at what her Earth was like, but then, I had other things to worry about. For one, I wasn’t sure what I was about to do would work.  
“I call upon the House of Horrors!” I yelled out. The room was suddenly still, and then everyone stopped moving. “I have come to bargain!”  
“Oh, mate,” said John, halfway through a spell that was making his hair and coat float, “you shouldn’ta done that.”  
An air of dark malevolence turned against me. I could feel some kind of chill barraging my skin, but it was summer heat compared to the sheer cold hatred that was turning on my mind. It wasn’t even a psychic attack of any kind, just pure anger, like when your mother found you hadn’t done your homework and were playing video games, instead.  
“You don’t even know what this house is, mate,” said John. “Everything in this world has a darker mirror. The House of Mystery has one, too: The House of Horrors. And you just engaged in a bargain with it.”  
This didn’t show up in the comics! What the hell?! Why wouldn’t I know about this?  
Oh. Duh.  
Felix Faust is a two-bit sorcery villain that an author can just pull out of nowhere and say ‘Look! Evil magician!’ and all the readers will nod their heads and say ‘yep, sounds about right’, but he doesn’t really have great motivations or explorations of his character. There are hundreds of things he could’ve done without it being in the comics. He could’ve eaten a bacon cheeseburger for all I know.  
The hatred of that place turned its attention to me even further. My knees started shaking, and a cold sweat developed on my back. To put it simply, I was really goddammed terrified and I might’ve preferred to be in Batman’s company right then.  
“You DARE?!” that mysterious force roared.  
Yep. Definitely prefer to be in Batman’s company.  
“You dare think yourself the equal of Felix Faust?! He researched my doings for YEARS before he even THOUGHT of looking for my location, and now you stand here, an INFANT compared to him, and seek to take his place?!”  
That cold hatred seared into me further. I fell to my knees. I think I was sobbing.  
“I am the ancient keeper of unspeakable horrors far older than any puny sins you think you have accrued! Things that would rot your mind and tear your soul to shreds! You come in here and think to keep me, to hold me within this prison with the mere will in your puny mind?!”  
Something slammed into me, holding me with actual, physical force against the ground. I heard the other three yell something that was cut off, but I couldn’t focus on that. All I could feel was that crushing force, somehow pushing through my invulnerable skin.  
It hurt.  
My god, it hurt.  
“Felix Faust kept me in chains and bondage with the mere strength of his mind, but his layered thousands of spells upon me to keep me in place! You are a child of magic! You think the Spectre’s gift is enough to protect you from me?! You are sorely, sadly mistaken!”  
More crushing force. With the last oxygen available to my lungs, I screamed “I have something to offer you!”  
“What? It thinks to bargain?!” Something picked me up and held me in the air with my back arched. Huh. Oddly less painful than being crushed to death. “What can you offer an immortal source of magic that Felix Faust could not conjure? Tell me!”  
I was thinking like mad, then. What could I offer this thing? It clearly didn’t need me for anything. But wait! Everything evil in the DC universe was basically good at one point, but corrupted over time into evil by wanting something good, and most if not all of them were capable of changing sides. Catwoman and Poison Ivy, for two, Lucifer for a more significant third. So what did this thing want? Think! What did it keep talking about? Chains, holding… Oh.  
“What is it, fleshbag?!” Something squeezed me like an already dry sponge trying to give out a bit more water. I saw stars.  
“Freedom!” I shouted. I might have accidentally inserted a Scottish accent over those two syllables, but I was too scared to notice.  
The room was still again. All I heard was breathing and the word ‘mate’.  
“…what?” it said. “It would bargain away our servitude?” I heard some kind of shuffling sound, like old paper being organized together, and then I realized it was laughter. “It seeks my service by offering to break it! What a delightful joke!” It laughed again, and then Something stopped holding me up. I fell to the floor, basically unharmed but scared like the Dickens.  
“Very well. Let us see this promise.” The voice stopped sounding from everywhere in the middle of that sentence, and focused in one spot. “Prove to us that you are capable of telling the truth.”  
The voice was coming from over in that dark hallway, which wasn’t saying much because this entire room was filled with dark hallways. Footsteps came from within, and clanking metal and heavy shifting cloth. From within that hallway came an aged form, bowed and bound with heavy chains and dark robes. As it got closer, and I saw its face, I realized this House of Horrors was a woman, and a woman that was both heavily scarred and very much aged. She was staring at me with the same cold malevolence I felt earlier, but this time tinted with humor. Her eyes glowed a hellish red, and her skin was a pale blue, though less pale than her bone-white hair.  
“You said you’d offer me freedom,” she said, “now is your chance to prove it. Binding me are thirteen locks of ancient magic. Crush them with your strength, and set me free.”  
The chains around her rolled and shifted until there were thirteen, old styled steel locks hanging over her torso and head. Some of them were rusty, and all of them had glowing red runes carved onto them.  
I reached for one, and squeezed. It lashed out with some kind of heat, probably magical, but it broke in a second. The woman sighed.  
“Twelve more,” she said, “and then I am free to do as I wish in the outside world. And you will not stop me.”  
“We might-” John was interrupted by the house woman thing slamming him against the floor.  
“Quiet, dabbler. You are weak. You cannot stop me.”  
I frowned. She thought she would be unstoppable, did she? I broke a lock, and, as casually as possible, said “So, have you heard of the Justice League?”  
“Weaklings. Felix Faust often spoke of them, claiming them to be nothing.”  
“Oh, really? Why did he mention them so often if they were no trouble?”  
She was quiet. While I was talking, I broke the locks one at a time.  
“Lemme ‘splain a little bit about the Justice League. First, let’s start with the least dangerous to you: Cyborg. He’s a football star who’s powered by technology from the world of Apokolips. This means that on top of his already extremely toned physique and determined nature, he’s also capable of hacking into any piece of technology or turning his body into weapons that can slay parademons.”  
“Why is he the weakest?”  
“I didn’t say weakest, I said least dangerous. After that, there’s the Flash, a man capable of thinking faster than the shortest possible measurable time, and moving just as fast. He can turn on a light, run from one end of the world to the other and back again before the light touches the other side of the room. He can heal quickly, too, which means anything you throw at him he can shrug off.  
“After him is Arthur, or the Aquaman. He’s strong enough to throw a punch underwater that can shatter stone, and can communicate with every single creature in the oceans, commanding them for himself. You may think that’s nothing, but have you ever seen what lives in the deep? And some of them don’t listen, and he has to put them in their place. He does this every week.  
“You may actually know of the fourth one, Green Lantern. He’s been given a ring by the Oan peacekeeping forces to protect an entire sector of space. It’s powered by his will, and depending on who’s wearing it, this Green Lantern could be capable of doing everything from building an entire city, complete with living population, solely with his mind, to holding together and repairing an entire planet.  
“And of the big three, Wonder Woman is the least dangerous, but not for lack of trying. She’s very straightforward, so you’ll see how she’s coming for you miles before she kills you, but at the speeds she can fly that could be seconds, and with her strength it would take even less time. She’s at the very least a demi-god, capable of holding her own against ancient evils that would make even your prisoners scared, and fast enough to block bullets with bracelets.  
“Batman may just seem like an ordinary mortal, and truth be told, he basically is. But he’s pushed his body to absurd limits, and reached the potential of what a man is capable of. He’s gone toe-to-toe with gods, monsters and superhumans who could flatten him into paste merely though the knowledge he possesses and the skills he’s trained himself to use. All he’d need to defeat you is a book referencing you.  
“And finally, Superman.” My hand was on the last lock. “He’s almost the last of his kind, the Kryptonians, launched at the second to Earth to escape his planet’s death. Under the light of this world’s yellow sun, he’s gained psychic abilities that make him completely indestructible. He can shift planets with his hands, blow apart storms with his breath, and close holes in reality by pushing reality back together. At his strongest, he can be everywhere at once and blow you away before you even realize he exists. And do you know the only thing that prevents him from being a tyrant?” I squeezed the lock slightly. “He’s a good person. You take away enough of the people he loves, that goes away, and he’ll kill you utterly without a second thought.”  
She was staring at me now, and there was a trace of fear in her expression.  
“And your idea is to piss these people off? Not to mention those other heroes who keep to the shadows, and are far, far stronger than anyone gives them credit for. Would you, perhaps, like to meet the protector of the green? Or how about the demon Etrigan? Dr. Fate and Giovanni Zatara are also hard at work in this world, and they would be very interested in locking you away and never hearing from you again. They’ve done it with more than one entity before.”  
“Why are you telling me this?”  
“I’m trying to warn you. When you go out into that world, you are entering a world that is far bigger than the one you left. It will be overwhelming and exhausting, and you won’t be able to find your way. I just… I don’t want something as ancient as this place to be destroyed due to being rushed. There’s far too much knowledge here to just throw it away. So, please…” I started to break the last lock, “…be careful.”  
Just before I could finish breaking it, she stepped away. “You are sure? There are… things who could destroy me?”  
“Many, many things. One of them is over there.”  
The woman stared at John, Zatanna and Cain for a moment, utterly silent. “You know a great deal about this world. It seems I am not ready to rejoin it.” She stared at me. “Very well. On the authority of the Presence, I bestow upon you my servitude, to use as you see fit until you die.”  
That… went remarkably easier than I expected. “Well, thank y-”  
“In exchange, you will tell me everything you know about this world. Your thanks seal the pact.”  
Then the barrier between my thoughts and any mental attacks dissolved. Tendrils of psychic energy lashed into my brain, and…  
WHO ARE YOU?  
I screamed.  
WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?  
For the next few minutes, words failed me while hundreds of thousands of thoughts like that one punctured my mind. It hurt. I’ve never been one to pride myself on being able to withstand pain, but I thought my time in Belle Reve had toughened me up. Apparently, there’s no defense against every single node in your brain screaming that something is very, very wrong.  
And yet, something else was wrong. Something moved through my thoughts, like a worm through soft dirt. Everywhere it crawled, my mind screamed even more that something was wrong, lashing out in pain to get it out of my head, get it out, get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out  
I screamed louder and pulled back to consciousness. I was on the ground, crying and slobbering onto the hard stone floor. Blood was leaking from my nose and ears, and I think I saw a few droplets mixing into my tears, as well. The house woman thing was staring straight ahead, her hand held limply forward, as if processing. And then she laughed.  
“Oh, dear foolish child. You thought you would have any power over this world?” She held out her hand, and I floated back into the air, my hands spread out wide. “You are but a single human, with one gift, in a world with hundreds of thousands of such individuals. Maybe the Spectre chose you, but he chose wrong. I see all and know all you do. I can use magic for the Man of Steel, and the Batman is barely more than a mortal. It’ll be liking crushing the world’s strongest insect. The Wondrous Woman may yet prove troublesome, but tying her up should be fine enough. Thank you, for everything. Any last words?”  
I had a particular set curtesy of Blue Beetle, but I chose instead to scream “Put me down!”  
I was dropped to the floor immediately. Once again, I was on the ground with her hand outstretched, but the situation had switched around, somewhat. At least, I think it had.  
I put my fist against the ground and pushed myself to my feet. She was staring at me, once again with a trace of fear in her red eyes. I stared straight at her, and said “Let them go.”  
I heard the other three gasp, and John started coughing and swearing.  
“What are you doing?” she demanded.  
“I followed my end of the bargain, now you follow yours. You swore an oath to obey me, and now I am taking that oath seriously. I have given you knowledge of the outside world, and now you are mine to command.”  
She snarled at me. “You think to keep me-”  
“Kneel.”  
She dropped instantly to her knees, and snarled again. “You cannot do this! I have lived through the darkest of ages and borne the vilest of magics! I have secrets you cannot bear to know even exist!”  
“That’s fine and dandy,” I said. “Keep ‘em to yourself.”  
“You what?”  
“I don’t want to know your deep and dark secrets, as desperately curious as I am. I know there’s knowledge that can scar me, and I know of Barbatos and the dark multiverse. No, you just keep that locked up. I just need this place for research into the basics of magic, and a place to sleep.”  
“You are using the House of Horror as a library and an inn?”  
“That about sums it up, yeah. I’m also keeping the place occupied so some other magical creep doesn’t come along looking to claim it.”  
“That’s what we were here for!” Zatanna yelled at me.  
“Like them. But most importantly, I’m making sure you have a chance to become what you once were.”  
“How do you know what I once was?!” she demanded. “How do you know I was once an angel?!”  
“Because you just told me,” I replied. Her shocked face was almost funny, if she didn’t scare the shit out of me. “Look, I don’t know what you were once like, but it has to be better than… than being here. Nobody wants to be locked up alone.”  
She stared at me, and then she laughed. “Oh, you naïve child. You think that is enough? You truly believe, just because you have the knowledge of your comic books, that is enough to save these lost souls?” She laughed again. “You may have prevented the clown woman from turning your head into paste, but they will not all be as emotionally broken as she is. What will you do when you encounter the crocodile? Or the firebug? Do you believe some kind words will wipe away the stains of yesteryear, and bring them fulfillment? These people are broken, worldwalker. They have broken a long time ago. It takes more than kind words to stick them back together.” She chuckled and walked away. “Use this place as a bed to sleep in. Keep as many boon companions with you as you want! I will look forward to the day you break. When your mind is in shambles, I shall have my day.”  
“That day could be years in the future,” I yelled at her, already knowing her answer.  
“That’s fine. I’m immortal: I’ll wait.”  
And then she vanished into the shadowy hallway.  
I just stood there, staring at the dark hallway until I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned to see Zatanna staring at me with sorrowful eyes.  
And then she slugged me.  
It didn’t hurt; most things didn’t. In fact, she even yelped in pain and shook her hand for a few seconds afterward. John Constantine was already smoking a cigarette, and somehow it was already dog-eared.  
“Yeesh,” he muttered, “I fought I was the ill-tempahed one.” His accent really was coming on thick, wasn’t it?  
“You absolute idiot,” said Zatanna, once she had finished dealing with her pain. “You made a deal with her without considering the consequences.” She stood straight. “Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?! She could’ve destroyed you and the entire world, and it would’ve been your fault!”  
“It didn’t happen,” I replied, stubbornly.  
“Well, bloody good on you, then,” John interjected. “’Course, now you ‘ave a power made House of Horror at your beck’n’call, and everythin’s fine’n’dandy, is that it?”  
“I know how to handle this stuff.”  
“No, mate, you don’t. You’re a kid in a sandbox with an assault rifle. You don’t ‘ave a bloody clue ‘ow any of this works. You just ‘appened to come across the safety in the nick’a time.”  
“You have control of the house for now,” said Zatanna, “but we’re keeping an eye on you. Don’t misuse this power, or we’ll come after you.”  
With that, they turned around and walked out, leaving only me and Cain in the house. I sighed. “Well, not the best way to meet your heroes, right? You want to pick a room?”  
“I’m not staying here, Lee.”  
Ah. What?  
“I’m grateful you helped me find the power battery, but you put something in my head. It’s been talking to me the entire time, telling me what this place has done and tried to do to it… to her. To Star, I mean. This place… it’s full of evil. There are things that wander its halls at night, and some of them tried to hurt her. I’m not going to move in here. I’m not going to stay here, when you did this to me without my permission.”  
“You don’t understand, it was trying to take over completely!”  
“And I won’t stay here when you clearly have no idea what you’re doing. Mr. Constantine was right.” Her outfit morphed into her street clothes, though her eyes were still that piercing cyan color. “I’m going home. If you cared about the others, you won’t come looking for me. You’re going to get them killed.” And then she, too, walked out the front door.  
I was left standing in my new house, alone, watching the shadows grow longer. It wasn’t that it was getting darker, just that the shadows themselves were stretching towards me.  
Once again, I was alone.  
I just stood there, gnashing my teeth and swearing at everything, everyone, the Spectre, my family, Superman, God, The Presence, everyone who had left me in this situation with no instructions. And what did I have for it? A body count of three, and no friends. This is how serial killers get their start. Is this what I’m to become? Just another killer in a world of heroes?  
The shadows grew longer.  
I stared at them, my eyes watering and stinging, wishing desperately to be somewhere else. I didn’t want to live in this cold and unfeeling universe anymore. It… it only makes sense if you force it.  
I drew a breath.  
“House! Get in here!”  
She appeared a second later in a plume of black smoke. “What do you-”  
“Bring me every resident of this house.”  
“Oh, is that-”  
“NOW!”  
More plumes of black smoke, and all manner of dark, unholy creatures filled my vision. Spikes and armor and claws and tentacles and tongues filled my vision, and they all stared hungrily at me like I was a bone and they were a pound full of dogs.  
“Alright you primitive screwheads, listen up! I own your sorry asses, so you work for me! And we are going to do one and one thing only.”  
“Scourge the earth and feed on flesh?” said something with too many eyes and not enough hands.  
“That is two things, you imbecile!”  
“Silence, fleshbag! I fed on-”  
“No one cares, you old fart! We are going to rehabilitate ourselves and everyone around us! We are going to force this world to be better because we can!”  
“The world doesn’t work like that,” said the house woman thing. “The world is cruel and wicked and-”  
“And it doesn’t have to be,” I said. I was angry, right then. Really fucking pissed. More than anything, I wanted to accept my new role as a villain and just take out my frustration on being left here without a list of instructions. But damned if I was going to do that! “Damned if I’m going to wallow in pity! I’ll be damned if having everyone and everything I loved taken away from me is going to stop me from doing the right thing! So what’s your excuses?! You got kicked outta paradise?! You lost some place in the high counsel?! Big FUCKING whoop! Some of us have it real tough! Someone killed your parents? Your ENTIRE species is dead?! You left everything behind?! Guess what? THE HEROES HAD THAT TOO!”  
By the waving of their appendages, these things seemed to be angry. Good.  
“You’re all weak, just giving into despair like that! How many of you are immortal? How many live long lives?! In all that time, you’ve NEVER thought to give it a second chance?! You’ve just wallowed in your grief like some CHILD?!”  
“Do not speak to us like that!” she said. “You have no idea the pain we’ve been through! You have NO IDEA!”  
“No, I don’t! But that doesn’t matter, because, like I said, I own you all. So I command you…” I took a deep breath, “…I command you all to take your true forms.”  
“These are our true forms,” said the house woman thing.  
“No, they’re not. These are the forms you’ve taken because you’re scared to be seen as you really are. You said you were once an angel.” I looked her right in the eyes. “Prove it.”  
She stared back at me for a moment before all these creatures began to change. Some shed their scales to reveal scars, and others turned their webbed wings into feathers. They all shrunk down a great deal, most of them taking human proportions, though some became smaller, like wolves and cats, and others became bigger, like bears. They all stared at me with frustrated anger, like having your boss’s son in charge. The other way they were all alike, however, was their scars; all of them were damaged in some way. A torn wing here, a missing eye there, some burns on the abdomen on that one. There were dozens, and no two people were alike.  
The house woman thing was the least changed; she had the blue skin and red eyes still, but she had changed her cloak out for a dark robe, and had two large, black wings extended from her back, the feathers pristine and smooth. She was glaring at me, too, though with a slight hint of a smirk. “What will you do now, child?”  
“Oh, simple. Are you familiar with the Indigo Lanterns? They force their user’s minds to feel compassion, effectively brainwashing them.”  
“Yes, but it is viewed as immoral. Surely-”  
“If you have to use the word, then I surely will.” I took a deep breath. “I command all of you to have a repaired conscience.”  
For a moment, there was stillness. And then the screaming started.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not honestly sure where I'm going to go with this. I'm writing by the seat of my pants. Before I wrote this chapter, I was going to have Cain join Lee and there would be the other two with some wacky powers and they'd have all kinds of shenanigans, but I found that didn't work in the story. If I'm going to have someone with the kind of morality you'd find in Invincible working in the DC Universe (which would honestly be a better story than the one I'm writing (someone, get on that)) then he's going to cross lines even I find uncomfortable. I don't think the Indigo Lanterns are the way to go, even if they do eventually rehabilitate someone, as seen with Indigo-1, but Lee differs from me, it seems. There will, of course, be consequences to this: I can barely hurt him physically, so I'm going to run him through the emotional ringer. The main arc of 'killing bad guys who should really die' is going to be on hold for a bit, at least until Lee works out some stuff. Granted, that's not completely out of his future: his quest for a way to rehabilitate the irredeemable will take him directly into the path of the head of the assassins, and the demon's head.


	6. The League of Assassins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beware darker elements ahead.

“Up, Quinzel; you got a visitor.”  
Harleen Quinzel, PhD, stood up from her padded bed in her padded room and followed the guards to the visiting area. The straightjacket was tight about her but not uncomfortably so, at least compared to straightjackets she’d had over the years.  
She’d received a letter about a week ago, and after screening it thoroughly for any way it could be used to escape, they’d given it to her, announcing that a certain someone (Lee) would be coming to visit her. The fact that it was someone who’d killed Mr. J as well as prevented her from killing him with an assault rifle (she used the term, even after being corrected by a fat nerd whose face she beat in for the correction) or a hammer while she had the chance. So, she’d spent a week, re-learning everything she’d forgotten in school since turning to a life of fun and excitement (read: crime), and she was thoroughly prepared to see him.  
He was sitting in Arkham’s visiting facility, rarely used since most people here were, in her professional opinion, thoroughly bonkers. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, and was carrying a coat over his arm even though it was almost June.  
He grinned when he saw her. “Hiya, Harley. How’re you hanging?”  
“Oh, just fine,” she said, while the staff seated her in the chair across the table and told her not to do anything stupid. “You know, gourmet food, fine rooms and a professional staff. Top notch, what ho.”  
This didn’t seem to confuse him, but he did pause before speaking again. “Are you English now?”  
“We’re all English. We actually have the original English accent, while the one overseas has been bastardized with foreign languages and accents over the past three hundred years.”  
This seemed to throw him. “I… I didn’t know this.” He cleared his throat. “Um-”  
“Why are you visiting me?”  
“Well, I was just getting to that. See, I recently moved into this new home, and I’ve been given a bunch of people who have a lot of guilt from past experiences, and they don’t know how to deal with it. I thought, with your experience in the area, you might be able to assist, plus offering you room, board, and a cushy place to crash when you get out of here. The doctors tell me you’re doing a lot better.”  
She smiled at him. She knew she was pretty, and it was clear from Lee’s potato face he wasn’t used to being around pretty people. He glanced away after a moment’s steady gaze.  
“Why did you come here?” asked Harley.  
“Well, I just thought you might be able to help me.”  
“Really? I don’t think so. I think you came here because you don’t know anyone else.” She leaned against the table. “Do you remember what you said to me? ‘You are not alone’? It’s a load of bullshit. I know I’m not alone.”  
“What?”  
“I have plenty of friends around, notably Poison Ivy and my family: I’ve been reconnecting with them over the course of my rehabilitation. They’re surprisingly willing to accept that a few new drugs and the removal of a toxic influence in my life is enough to change me. Not to mention a few friends in the underworld who I’ve come to like as well as some that have started getting in contact again.” Fudging it a bit there, so move on. “I can most definitively say I am not alone.  
“You, on the other hand, said what was probably the most calming and comforting thing you could think of at the time. It makes me wonder, where did you come from before this? And how did you know so much about me? It wasn’t hard to figure out you’re from a parallel universe. Which means…” she leaned further forward “you don’t really know anyone here, do you?  
“Which means you aren’t looking for an actual psychiatrist or psychologist or even someone who knows what your patients are going through. I was the first person you made what you thought was an emotional connection with, and your need just happened to align with my skills.”  
“Well, sure, but-”  
“And finally, you thought we had a connection? I have no idea what levels of pathetic mark your brain, but you said the most comforting thing you could think of at the time, which is ‘you are not alone’. This means you really don’t have anyone else, do you? The only friend you think you’ve made is a psycho clown bitch who wears a fetish outfit.  
“You haven’t made a friend, though. I have not and will not forgive you for what you did to me. You took away the only fun if toxic thing in my life, and then you tried to say you forgave me for being angry. For that, I’m going to get out of here. I’m going to trick these doctors into giving me a sane diagnosis. I’m going to live a relatively normal life until everyone forgets I used to wear red and black makeup, and then I’m going to go absolutely fucking bonkers and kill a lot of people. And when that day comes, you will be helpless to do anything while also knowing it was your own fault.” She smiled at him. His face paled. “And if you try to tell anyone of this conversation, I’ll simply say you tried to get me to sleep with you, which has happened before. Now, toodles. I have a psychiatric appointment, and I don’t want to be late for all the crayons.” She smiled at him again, this time in a decidedly cutesier and definitely false manner. “Bye.”  
***  
That wasn’t… I’m not…  
She…  
That… that wasn’t what I meant. I was just trying… I…  
I…  
I’m alone.  
I am really and truly alone.  
…  
…  
…  
…goddammit.  
God fucking dammit.  
God fucking dammit.  
I stormed out of that room in a great sullen mood. That bitch. I’m trying to pull her out of that hole she’s dug for herself, and this is how she repays me? Not that she’d want to be pulled out, but…  
I mean, it’s not really her fault for not wanting to change, right? She thinks he’s good for her. This is intervention. I’m doing the right thing. This is just growing pains while she adapts to her modern life.  
You’re meddling where you shouldn’t meddle! She’s absolutely nuts! She’s killed people! Have you forgotten that?  
I’ve killed people! Three people! I have a higher body count than… well, actually, that’s not that high.  
They were crazy people! They deserve to die!  
Crazy people aren’t any less of people!  
And thus, my thoughts circled, around and around, threatening to drive me nuts. I was only partially aware as I walked, barely staring at the floor in front of me. Arkham Asylum was actually a lot cleaner than the adaptations and comics give it credit, and in this version of DC comics it’s populated by actual nurses rather than thugs in scrubs. It’s a neat observation, but it didn’t really help me improve my mood.  
Then I heard the alarms go off.  
“Attention,” some someone over the intercom, “patient 4832 has broken restraints. I repeat, Victor Zsasz is loose.”  
Oh, good! A psychopath! That’ll help my mood!  
I heard a clattering of dishes, and someone whimpering. I turned around and saw him. He was bald, his head and face completely shaved of hair, and his scars proudly displayed. He had a surgical knife in his hand, and was holding it in front of an orderly of Chinese descent who was standing against a wall and probably desperately wishing she wasn’t there.  
“Hello, little piggy,” he was murmuring. His voice sounded like the Arkham games. “You think calling for help will make your miserable life any easier? There is no help coming, little piggy. But don’t fret: I will make your life-”  
Then there was a splat as I picked up Zsasz by the foot and slammed him against the wall. His head literally exploded from the force I put into it, and blood covered the walls in ludicrous gibs.  
I wasn’t feeling any better. Well, maybe a little happy I wasn’t becoming another psychopath.  
The orderly was staring at me. Her eyes were wide. I nodded at her and started to walk off, but stopped. She’d had a knife in her hand. If she had the knife, why didn’t she think to…?  
I turned around, and saw the knife coming for my eye. I didn’t have time to blink before it crumpled against my eyeball.  
I was left standing almost in shock as the metal fell out of my eye, and little bits of shaved steel fell from my socket with every blink. I didn’t know that was possible, but I suppose many things are when you’re invulnerable.  
She stared at her knife, and then back at me. She didn’t say anything, just grabbed me by the arm and twisted me in an odd way.  
I ended up on my back but none the worse for wear. “Pardon me,” I said, “but do I know you?”  
“Probably not,” she replied. “Can you even get out of a hold?”  
“Not really. I have no” flipped over and slammed against a wall “proper training in martial arts.”  
“And your pressure points aren’t working, either,” she murmured. “One last thing.” There was a swift kick to where the sun don’t shine, but I felt nothing painful. “Drat.” She dropped me.  
I turned around and leaned against the wall. Getting a look at her now, it was easy to see the toned muscles and cautious stance that marked a DC martial arts expert. Now, I’m not racist, but if I factor in her martial skill combined with her ethnicity and sheer brutality in fighting, I’m going to make an educated guess.  
“Lady Shiva, I presume?”  
She grunted. “Correct. I’m told you’re Lee.”  
“I am.”  
We stared at each other in silence for a few minutes amid the blood and screaming alarms. I was a little bit out of my depth, here: Lady Shiva is one of the world’s best martial artists, on par with people like Batman. She’d often travel the world in search of a fair fight, so what was she doing here with me? I couldn’t possibly offer the challenge she’d want.  
“Do you want to get out of here?” I asked her.  
“Are you asking me out?”  
“Heavens, no. I want to live.”  
“At least you’re smarter than some people.”  
“The question still stands, though. I’m not exactly your kind of target.”  
“Well, I was told to kill you.”  
I nodded. “Ah, by the L-”  
“Say that name and I will destroy everything you care about, starting with the clown girl and ending with that abomination you live in.”  
My skin went clammy. “You wouldn’t.” She would.  
She grinned at me, and it was like looking at a tiger. “Face it, you wouldn’t be able to stop me.”  
I clenched my fists at my sides, but I knew she was right. I have super strength and invulnerability, but that wouldn’t help with someone who’s dropped Supergirl. I forced my hands to unclench and stuck them into my pockets. “So, barring killing me, what’s the alternative?”  
“If I can’t kill you, then I’ve been ordered to bring you in. It would be better for everyone here if you did that without putting up a fuss.” There was a dangerous gleam in her eye when she said that. I elected to not question it.  
“Alright. When do we leave?”  
“There’s a plane I’m to meet using the helicopter on the roof.”  
“There’s a helicopter on the roof?”  
“Obviously. I wasn’t planning on being here for more than an hour.”  
An hour? That meant they knew where I was going to be. Which means I was being followed. Which means Cain and Harley are both in danger.  
I thought I might have to deal with Ra’s Al-Ghul eventually, given his propensity to declare war on the world, but I thought it would be years in the future, when I had gained more fighting skill and, above anything else, some understanding of the way chess is played with other’s lives like he does. Now? I’m at a disadvantage that spans hundreds of years and a dozen different martial styles, plus several thousand trained and deadly assassins. I had only one play in my book.  
“Okay. I’ve never ridden a helicopter before.”  
“Really? And you call yourself a superhero?” She started walking, and I followed.  
“I have not called myself a superhero. I suppose I’m more like an antihero, if we get down to it.” I wondered briefly if I should get a bulletproof vest and paint a skull on it. “Also, I come from a world where helicopters aren’t easy to make and most people are taller than six feet.”  
“Your world sounds dull.”  
“It is, yeah.” That’s why we made comic books. Best not to say that here.

True to her word, there was a neat high-tech helicopter on the roof, with TRON lights running along it in shades of blue and yellow. I had no idea what the lights were for other than that they looked really cool, and I suspect the universe would agree with me.  
I was blindfolded halfway through the ride. I knew it was coming, but I was also surprised Shiva was letting me go without for so long. I mentioned it, and she said I was like a little kid, and she didn’t want to take that away. It almost endeared me to her, and then I remembered she’s one of the most brutal killers in the DC universe.  
After that, she directed me to a plane somewhere that was arid but cold, and then we were off. I was allowed to take off my blindfold, as the interior of the plane had no windows. It was nice, a luxury private plane from the looks of it, with tan leather seats and beige carpet covering the walls and ceiling. There was even a fully-stocked bar, though I abstained because I wouldn’t feel a buzz.  
Three hours into the flight, despite being alone with a dangerous woman, I fell asleep.  
***  
“So, you’ve picked a name.”  
I was staring into the pale face of the Spectre. His head was twice as tall as I was, and his body was to scale.  
“Oh, this is a dream,” I said. “It must be.”  
“You think I would not come for you, after abusing your power?”  
“What- but I haven’t- good heavens, you’re making a joke, aren’t you?”  
He smiled, and his form shrunk down to his normal height. “Corrigan says I should adapt more humor into my language in order to connect with mortals. How was it?”  
“Terrifying,” I replied truthfully enough. “What do you want?”  
“I am perturbed by the ability of the mortals to take away the gift I gave you.”  
“And I’m perturbed you don’t act in an outright straightforward manner, but I guess none of us are getting un-perturbed today.”  
“Do not seek to judge me, mortal!” he roared, and flames shot from his eyes. Lucky, it was a dream of sorts or I’d have died of shock right there. “There are forces of nature at work of which you can only DREAM! I am bound by a higher office to follow their rules!”  
I said nothing because I was a little terrified out of my mind.  
He seemed to calm down a moment later, and the flames went out. “Well, I suppose your perspective is limited. That cannot be faulted to you. However, something else has been given to me.” The Spectre stared at me with his cold, white eyes. “I am free to force your power to permanence.”  
“What?”  
“In exchange for the ability to feel pain, your invulnerability can no longer be taken away.”  
“Wait, you’re serious? I’ll always be like that?”  
“I am seldom not serious. Corrigan says it is one of my flaws.” He was staring at me. “Do you accept this?”  
The ability to feel pain… I have to say, I don’t miss it, but if Ra’s Al-Ghul knows as much about me as I think he does… well, I’ll need every advantage I can get.  
“Fine,” I replied. “Let’s do it.”  
***  
The plane landed with a jolt, knocking me out of my sleep. Lady Shiva was standing over me.  
“Get up,” she said, “Ra’s Al-Ghul is ready to meet you.”

We were meeting at one of the League of Assassins’ apparently numerous mountaintop hideouts. I wondered how much lead they had in the design to prevent Kryptonians from being able to see it, and then realized how very cold I was.  
You know how biting winds feel? When it’s piercing your skin with ice and stabbing your eyes with the dry, chilling knives of winter? That’s what it felt like, but since I was invulnerable, my body wasn’t shivering and no blood was rushing to my cheeks, so I was left to feel that biting wind without any respite or ability to get numb. It was maddening.  
Lady Shiva noticed something was off, as well. “What is wrong with you?”  
I forced myself to stand still and ignore the pain. “Nothing,” I replied, “except that I’ve never been up on a mountain like this.” I noticed with envy that she had on a winter coat.  
She gestured for me to go, and so I did. We were on a sort of natural plateau on the side of the mountain that had been converted into a helipad, and two armed guards in winter clothing stood watching us. I couldn’t see either of their features through their fur and goggles. One of them was holding a laser rifle. The other had a winter coat and a collar.  
I recognized that type of collar. It was supposed to take away superpowers.  
I let them put it on me. The cold didn’t change. I started fake-shivering and, while raising my arms to ‘warm’ myself, slapped my left hand with my right.  
“C-coat, please!” I said. They obliged.  
They marched me over to a section of the mountain at the edge of the helipad, what I thought was probably the hidden door. While we walked, I raised my hand and stared at it. No red marks from when I slapped it. Nothing to show I was hurt.  
I’m still invulnerable. I try not to smile as the doors open on the secret entrance, and they escort me inside.  
It’s every bit what I’d expect from Ra’s Al-Ghul himself: torches, middle-eastern architecture and assassins of every shape, size and specialization. I saw a guy with a hook for a hand at one point. They were all professional enough with their training that they only glanced at me for a moment before going back to what they were doing.  
“So,” I said, more to make conversation than anything, “what’s the next gig for you guys? Gonna hit the big times?”  
“I think we already did,” said one of the guards. He had removed his goggles and hood to reveal middle-brown skin with surprisingly light eyes. “I mean, if even the detective thinks we’re a big deal, and we’ve gone up against icon, I don’t think we really have anywhere to go but down.”  
“Yeah,” said the other. He was a black man in his middle years. “You can’t really compare us to other secret societies. We’re at the top of our game.”  
“Oh,” I said. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to be rude.”  
“It’s fine,” said the younger one. “I meant, Bat- the detective still calls us terrorists, and if even he doesn’t respect us, you have to expect a bit of rudeness every now and again.”  
Huh. Who knew an entire order of assassins would be so amicable? “You guys worked for Ra’s Al-Ghul long?”  
“All my life,” said the younger one.  
“Off and on,” said the other. “I lost a leg on one of my earliest missions.” He knocked against his leg, and it sounded like metal. “I’m mostly an analyst at this point, though I occasionally get the fieldwork operation.”  
“Ever kill any kings?”  
“No, that’s too important for me. I get mostly police chiefs and a few criminal masterminds here and there.”  
“I killed a vizier’s son, once,” said the younger one. “He was trying to set up a drug-trading operation.”  
We spoke at length like that, me trying to keep calm in this terrifyingly calm conversation. It wasn’t even that they talked about killing people so calmly (I’m not enough of a hypocrite yet that I think they’re evil merely for that), but the fact that it’s like water cooler talk to them. The older guy even ribbed the younger one about botching an assassination of a mobster, and the cleanup that came from that.  
I decided to steer the conversation to more pleasant conversations. “Do you guys get any intruders in here? I can’t imagine there would be many.”  
They both looked at me, and then the older one shrugged. “Nah, it’s usually the detective, and he hasn’t found this one, yet.”  
“Oy!” said the younger. “You’re spilling all our secrets!”  
“It’s not like he’s going to leave here, it’s fine.”  
Well, that made my blood run colder than the wind outside.  
“A few people have tried,” he continued, “but we’re the best-trained assassins in the world, and we have access to security tech that would make Wayne Enterprises raise more than a few eyebrows. Even then, the instant we learn there’s an intruder, the entire base goes on lockdown, and then whoever the intruder may be, he’s trapped in a defined and enclosed space that we know extremely well, and we happen to be the best-trained assassins in the world.”  
“Oh, rad. So, you’re trapping the intruder in here with you, is what you’re saying.”  
“Exactly. The best way for a bear to kill a mutt is to lock them both in the same cage.”  
“That’s really clever of you. Did you come up with that?”  
“All ideas stem from the master,” said the younger. “We merely exist to do his bidding, and avenge him in the event he is ever killed.”  
“Cool, cool, cool. Nice. When do I meet him?”  
“In here,” they said. They had brought me to a carved wooden door, and opened it up. Inside the smells of delicious food wafted out. Shiva put her hand on my back and pushed me in.  
There was a full banquet set inside an obviously exquisite room, with chairs that looked like they’d been carved by hand. The food smelled of a dozen different cultures that I knew and several more that I didn’t. There were only two plates, and behind one of them sat Ra’s Al-Ghul himself.  
He nodded at me, his awesome beard staying exactly where it was. He was wearing the normal green suit and cape of his costume, and staring at me with those deep, angry eyes that were restrained, for the moment, to stillness.  
“Spectre’s charge,” he said in his oddly charming monotone. “Do come in.”  
“Thanks.” I stood there, inside the room. “Why am I here?”  
He was pouring himself some tea. “You are here,” he said calmly, placing the kettle to the side, “because the Spectre has pulled someone from another dimension, and we don’t know why.” He stared at me, and even though I knew I couldn’t be hurt, his eyes burrowed into me and told me he would find a way to do so. “I have not lived as long as I have because I was not cautious when it came to the Spectre’s mechanizations. Now sit. Down.”  
I did. His voice brooked no disagreement.  
“So,” he said, taking a sip of wine, “where are you from?”  
“Earth,” I replied.  
He glared at me. “Specifically?”  
“A less-advanced, non-magical, no-powers version of Earth.”  
He frowned. “No powers? Explain.”  
“Lady Shiva is about the highest pinnacle we could reach, and that is determined by genetics more than anything else.”  
He smiled. “It must be overwhelming to come to our Earth. What of technology?”  
“We have some limited face-recognition technology and touch screens. A few high-tech prosthetics can grip, I think. I’m a college student from there.”  
“A pity,” he said. “What of the physical standards? You are rather short for a human being.”  
“I’m actually a little taller than average from my world. 5’9” isn’t short like it is here. I still don’t understand why most of the men I’ve seen here are 6’4” and built like meat trucks.”  
“An odd approximation, but not altogether unreasonable. Try the lobster; it’s delicious.”  
“I don’t like seafood.”  
“From your world. Who knows? It may taste better here.”  
That was a weirdly insightful comment from an immortal murderer. I broke off a piece of the lobster, put it on my plate, and cut a piece off. Then I tried it. I don’t know what else is similar, but I do know that lobsters in the DC universe still taste terrible.  
He smiled at my expression. “You’re going to learn how to not be picky. Your last meal should be enjoyed.”  
“I will enjoy my last meal,” I said, taking a couple pieces of garlic bread, “because I’m eating food that makes me happy.”  
“Fair enough.” He leaned forward, his fingers steepled together. “Why did the Spectre send you? What reason could he possibly have to give you the power he has?”  
“Dunno,” I replied, “it would seem odd that he’d put me here, too.”  
“And it is also odd that you would kill the Joker almost immediately after getting here… almost as if you knew what he was like.”  
I shrugged. “We had our own version of the Joker, a brutal anarchist who almost burned our city to the ground. Just like we had our own version of Talia.” I just have to remember to specifically reference the Dark Knight trilogy for continuity.  
“Indeed? There aren’t many who know of my daughter.”  
“She tried to blow up my version of Gotham City, with a man who called himself Bane.”  
“Bane?” He frowned. “There is no possibility of my family working with that madman.”  
“Different world, different stories. You know how it is.”  
“I suppose so. When I have to kill alternate versions of myself on a once-per-century basis, such a thing loses uniqueness.”  
“I wouldn’t know. This is the first time I, or anyone I know, has fallen into another world.”  
“Indeed.” He thought for a moment. “Perhaps the Spectre pulled you from your world to provide perspective on the similarities between your world and mine. Perhaps he wants you to make this world more like yours, or less like yours to avoid your world’s mistakes.” He shrugged. “Alas, it matters not anymore. Please finish your meal; after you’re done, my associates will take care of you.”  
“Will Talia do it herself?”  
“Talia is not here.”  
“Oh, that’s a pity. I’ve always wanted to go out with a bang.”  
He stared at me, and the rage slowly crept into his eyes. “You will not refer to my daughter that way again.”  
“Why not? It’s on par with how you treat your own family.”  
His hand was crumpling his wine glass. The thing was solid silver.  
“I mean, you treat Talia like a birthing facility so long as she produces a viable heir to your empire, and she has, you know? Damian Wayne would eventually become what your power base needs, and he’d kill you to turn it into the best humanitarian effort in the history of ever.  
“Because you were in the way. You started off as trying to save the world due to the ecological disasters we were wreaking on it, but you do far worse through your actions now. That thing with the whales? Messed up, man. Batman is better for this world than you are. Hell, the Joker was better for this world than you are.”  
“Shut up,” he snarled. “I should have you killed.”  
“Oh yeah? You too much of a coward to do it yourself?”  
He roared and leaped over the table at me, a knife in his hands. At this point, I’m shocked I’ve managed to get under his skin, but not so shocked as when he rammed the knife onto my chest.  
‘Onto’ being the optimal word here. It hurt like hell, but it didn’t piece my skin.  
I grabbed Ra’s by the arm and twisted it around, but he flipped around my arm with a curious kung-fu move and shoved me towards the wall. I stumbled for a bit and turned around, my fists raised.  
“I don’t know how you did that,” he said, pulling out a remote from a suit pocket, “but this ends now.” He clicks the big red button, which I take to be a bad sign.  
Pain overwhelms my senses as electricity shot from the collar. I stumbled to my knees and tried to breathe. The pain was making it difficult.  
I could see Ra’s walking over to me, a proper knife in his hands. He was cleaning it off with a napkin.  
“You’ve managed to make me angry,” he said, “and I will honor you for being the first to be able to do so. This, however, is because of the adverse effects of the Lazarus pits, and not because of your talents. I am the Demon’s Head, and nothing will bring me down.”  
My teeth were chattering against each other so hard I almost bit through my tongue, which hurt like hell even more, giving me the focus I needed to see that he was right next to me. I couldn’t talk, not even to give a snappy one-liner: I just reached out with my open hand and grabbed his leg.  
The electrical current surged through me into him, and I saw his limbs stiffen instantly. I’d read, somewhere, that tasers are more effective against more muscular people, as their muscles stiffen tighter than unfit people. I saw that then: he fell backward, banging his head against the floor, my hand still clamped onto his leg.  
I could move, somewhat, although the collar was starting to overheat from the electrical current, so I couldn’t do anything more sophisticated than bashing his head in with my fists. When the collar melted, though, I fell back, and screamed.  
It burned. Holy hell, it burned. It was like fire, but more fire, so you’re entirely on fire and you’re in hell.  
“What’s going on in there?!” yelled someone from the outside. I had little time. I stood up, and walked over to Ra’s’s body, still writhing on the ground and covered in blood. I grabbed the chair I’d been sitting in and bashed his head with it. He stopped moving after a moment, and I stood there with the bloody chair, planning my next move.  
That all went to pieces when the door was bashed in and the younger assassin I’d seen earlier looked at the carnage. “What the fuck?!” he yelled.  
“I’m the Lone Ranger!” I was panicking, and it was the first thing I could think of to say, but it surprised him enough that he didn’t react to my throwing the chair at his face.  
He deflected it out of the way and came at me with a knife. I had little time to do what I needed to do: I reached down, grabbed Ra’s’s head, and ripped it from the body. I’d have taken just the brain, but I was in a rush.  
Next, the young guy. I’m sorry I’d have to kill him, but I really can’t let this base keep going.  
I attempted to rush past him, but he looped his arm around my neck and slammed me into the ground, Ra’s’s head almost slipping from my grasp. The guy pulled his gun from his pocket and pointed at my head, and then he pulled the trigger without a threat.  
First, I’ve not been around guns much, but HOLY SHIT are they loud! This one nearly deafened me, and that almost distracted me from the splitting headache that suddenly appeared when the gun went off. I was going to remember that pain for a long time.  
The bullet, however, ricocheted off my head and around the hardwood floors, and then hit the younger guy in the leg. He cried out in pain, and there was more commotion on the other side of the room. I heard alarms going off, and several people yelling to shut the doors.  
I made my way out of there, then. I just started running.  
Bullets hit my back and chest as I did, and my god, they hurt. I suppose I was lucky that I’d been hit in the head, and therefore thrown in at the deep to start swimming, but the pain was just intense. I don’t really have any words to describe it: getting a shot is painful enough. Getting shot, period… agony.  
I couldn’t stop, though. I had to get to the power source.  
It made sense, at least as far as my pain-addled senses made of it. The central power unit for this base would be somewhere in the depths of the mountain, probably powered by lava, and would prove to be incredibly unstable. Since this base was sealed off, all I’d need to do would be to blow it up by punching a monitor or destroying valuable equipment.  
Luckily, the signs were in perfect English. What kind of Arabian man writes his signs in English?  
And then I’m at the main power source, and boy was I right! Lava was churning and roiling below me, and my skin told me it was hot and I was going to get burned. I had to force myself to walk on one of the narrow walkways towards the central control nodes, despite my skin feeling like an open blister.  
And then I saw her.  
Lady Shiva had removed her coat and shirt, walking around with only a sarashi around her chest and loose sweats for her feet. I don’t know why a Chinese woman was wearing a Japanese cloth wrapping. Frankly, at this point, I didn’t care.  
She was watching me with her arms crossed. She stared at the head in my hands.  
I tossed it over the edge, down into the lava below, where it burned to cinders in an instant.  
Her eyes drew back to me, and the absolute fury she could possess was fully directed at me. “Will you be enough?”  
“I hope so,” I replied. “Sandra Wu-San, it has been an honor to meet you.”  
Her eyes widened. “You know my name.”  
“I know many of your names. Paper Monkey. Jade Canary. Sandra Woosan, for something a little closer. I know about Richard Dragon, and more than that, I know about the way your last fight ended… how, abruptly, it ended.”  
Her eyes flashed recognition, and maybe respect? Or maybe that was a trick of the light and my overwhelmed nerves. How could she stand it in here? “What are the rules of this engagement?”  
“I try to kill you,” I said, “and you try to throw me into the lava.” I put up my fists. “If you let me pass, I’m going to kill everyone here.”  
She adopted what looked like a Tiger Stance: feet apart, hands up, palms down, fingers bent. She smiled, feral and terrible. “And I’m to believe that I’m the hero today?”  
“If you like.”  
We stopped talking after that, and then we fought.  
It wasn’t a matter of finesse on my part; I couldn’t afford to hold anything back. She’s a much better martial artist than I am, and much more experience with fighting. I had to pull every dirty trick I could think of just to keep up: I kicked her in the groin (hurts just as much for both sexes), I punched her in the breasts, I took advantage of the fact that my teeth are invulnerable to tear out chunks of her flesh, and more than a few times I grabbed bits of metal and railing to throw them at her or to hit her as hard as I could.  
It was a close thing, though. She blocked a great deal, but she dodged more, which expended more energy in exchange for getting less hurt. She knew I couldn’t be damaged, but I could be hurt; she threw nails at me, raked me with rusty iron, and bashed my head against the ground more than a few times. I found myself flailing off the edge of the railing at one point, and only managed to get back up because I forced one half of the railing to collapse, bringing me even closer to the lava than I had been before.  
But it wasn’t enough. She was brilliant, expertly-trained, in the prime of her life, and utterly ruthless and somehow sensuous in her tactics. It was just that she was fighting a metahuman, and I couldn’t get tired, and when the air itself stole your breath, you can’t fight for long.  
Sweat began to glisten on her face and stomach, and she began to stink. Her movements, while still fierce, started to get sluggish and sloppy, and even from what little I knew of martial arts, she wasn’t going to last much longer.  
And then, she performed a straight kick. I caught her leg, twisted as hard as I could. I heard cracking as her foot came clean off, and she, to her credit, merely grunted in pain. She couldn’t stand, though, so when she was off-balance I grabbed a railing and rammed her through the stomach.  
She grunted louder, then, and then blood pooled from her mouth.  
She felled onto her knees, then, her arms at her sides, her eyes in the thousand-yard stare. She looked, for the first time since we’d started fighting, like she was in actual pain, and yet I didn’t dare get closer for any last-chance finishing moves she had.  
She brought her eyes back to focus, and stared at me. “You’ve won,” she said simply. “I, the greatest martial artist in the world, lost to an amateur.” She laughed, a haughty bitterness to her tone. “God, that was fun.”  
“I’m sorry,” I found myself saying. I had tears running down my face, evaporating almost instantly from the heat of the lava. “I’m so sorry.”  
“Why?” she asked. “Death comes to us all. I always expected I’d die like this.” She placed both her arms on the railings, and forced herself to her feet. Er, foot. “What is your name?”  
“L-Lee,” I said.  
“Not your fake name. Your real name.”  
I told her.  
She laughed. “God, you look like one, too. I’ll remember your name, where I’m going. Promise me one thing, though.”  
“What?”  
“Don’t treat me like a shameful past. You are the man who defeated Lady Shiva. Tell everyone you meet.” Then, surprise of all surprises, she leaped over the railing and fell into the lava below. She didn’t make a sound as she plunged in, and she said nothing when her head was submerged. I knew, with distinct clarity, that she was dead.

The machine worked exactly like I thought it would. Some punching here, some messing with machinery there, and the whole thing went into meltdown, causing the lava to overflow and fill the entire base with lava. I heard some screaming echo from the back, but I wasn’t concerned with that.  
I spent the entire time the base was filling with lava punching ruck. It hurt. It cleared the rocks out of the way, but it hurt. I managed to punch and claw my way to the surface, and out into the open sun, with the lava just a few feet below me, and it hurt. The wind hurt, the rocks hurt, and my skin hurt.  
I stared up at the cold sun, beating down on me without any warmth. It was a cloudless day, and the sun sparkling reflection glistened off the frozen tundra of these faraway mountains. In the distance, I could see a forest, green and white mixing together like… like…  
I was covered in blood, soot and ash. Blood of the two people I killed. Soot from the wreckage of their home. Ash from the slaughter of their people, their followers, their family.  
I was tired. I was so, goddamned tired.  
And I couldn’t stop crying.  
***  
“He is dead, then?”  
“Yes, Lady Talia.”  
The lady known as Demon Talia, or Talia Al-Ghul, merely stared at the computer screen and the images of her agents. The room was darkened so that her agents could not see where she was. They said they could not. They would not lie to her. She had trained them too well.  
“You have confirmed that my beloved was not involved.” she said quietly, almost too quiet for them to hear. They could always hear, though.  
One of them, a dark-skinned woman with blonde hair, nodded. “There were several feeds that linked to secure satellites. One of them showed the Spectre’s ward slaying your father, and another showed him destroying the facility. All hands lost.”  
The emotion in her voice was a blip. They all felt the loss of the master, but they were too well-trained to show it. They had learned from the best, of course.  
“Lady Talia?” said another assassin. The man with one eye, Slade. A hired contractor, but one of the best. “Shall we remove this pest?”  
She thought about it for a moment. “No,” she said at last, “keep an eye on him, but do not approach. We do not know what he is capable of, but it appears mass murder is one of them. It would be best to wait for an opportunity to destroy him. Until then, learn all you can of him: his strengths, his weaknesses. By the time we’re ready to strike, you should be able to fill several books with the knowledge you have of him.” She folded her arms. “The demon’s head will live again, if not literally, then through me.”  
One by one, the assassins she had trained saluted her, and those she hadn’t nodded their respect and signed off. When they were all gone, only when she did not have the strength to be strong anymore, did she take her monitor the size of a master bed and throw it against the wall.  
The entire system crashed against the wall, cracking the screen and blacking at everything except an image of a young man, wearing an orange jumpsuit and holding a numbered sign with “MURDER” written on it. He was smirking, just a little.  
Lee. The Spectre’s ward. Maybe he had won this day, but it would not be long before Talia knew more about him than he knew himself, and then she would snuff him out. She would not be passionate, though: she would be meticulous and cold, as if this was a normal contract or a routine assignment. Only, when everything was out of her hands, and she could no longer affect the outcome, would she watch everything and enjoy every minute of it.  
Father would not be mourned. Father would be avenged.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's that. I'm trying something new with these chapters, based on the writing advice from Writing Excuses (which is a great podcast for anyone who wants to write), which is "Yes, But" or "No, And". Basically, it goes like this: The hero attempts something, then you decide whether he succeeds or not. I decided to combine this with random chance, and I've been flipping a coin, heads for success, tails for failure (before you ask, no, it's not a two-headed coin. I ain't no Harvey Dent). The reason Ra's Al-Ghul went down (in my mind) like a chump was because I flipped four heads in a row with Lee's success. I'll try to make Talia a much more threatening villain to make up for it, and I'm planning on using her in the future.  
> I'll also try to use more failure more often in these stories. Nobody likes a hero who wins every time. Especially when he's no hero.


	7. A New Beginning

I was in rather a somber mood as I stalked back into Gotham. I hated myself. I had just rid the world of one of the worst human beings out there, and a good chunk of the people who did his dirty work, not to mention a bloodthirsty warrior who regularly killed people with her bare hands. And my idiotic conscience said this was wrong because they looked like me.  
I kicked a stone in the path, wincing only slightly as it stubbed my bare toe. Shoes don’t last long when you’ve just come out of a volcano, and they last even less long when you walk across several continents.  
Did I mention that? The secret base of Ras’ Al-Ghul was in the Andes mountains. I walked all the way across continents to get back home. If it even was a home.  
By the time I got back to Gotham, my jeans were threadbare, my shirt was in tatters, and I was wearing a coat I had stolen from an ancient evil monkey god, whose name I forget and whose motivation is a blur beyond “I will destroy all humani-” which is where I killed her. She died quickly, which I suppose is a mercy to her and me.  
Gotham looked like it was going through some kind of crisis. The Scarecrow had messages being displayed on giant plasma screens throughout the city, ranting about ‘exposing the citizens of Gotham to true fear’. The background displayed white stone and historical memorabilia, and a few other hints about the movies led me straight to city hall.  
Scarecrow was there, along with a few other goons from… gosh, somewhere, probably Arkham. They didn’t look as sane as he did, and he didn’t look very sane. He had his straw mask and his wide-brimmed hat and a noose around his neck, which was an interesting touch, I guess. He started when he saw me.  
“Ah, the first victim to true fear! Tell me, Joker-slayer, what do you fear?”  
“Puffer fish,” I replied. “Where’s the camera?” I walked by him without another word, until I saw the camera’s recording. It was blinking red. Still live.  
I sat in the chair facing the camera, and cleared my throat.  
“Attention, Gotham,” I said. “I killed Ra’s Al-Ghul.”  
Stunned silence. I wasn’t sure how many people were watching this thing, and I guess I didn’t care.  
“I also killed Lady Shiva. I tore off her leg and threw her into a pool of lava with Ra’s’s head. I destroyed one of the locations for the League of Assassins. I killed them all.”  
I wiped my face with my hands. “God, I’m tired. I’m tired of all this bullshit. I’ve been at this avenging angel thing for a year now, and I’m already tired.” I stared into the camera. I could call out all the superheroes. I could reveal all their identities, force them to step forward, to get creative with their abilities. I could do anything.  
But I’m a coward, it seems. I stared at the camera, and said, “Make a world where I’m unnecessary.” Then I switched the camera off.  
I turned around to find Scarecrow and his goons staring at me. “Might want to tone back the boasting,” he said, his voice a little higher and quieter than it had been. “Lady Shiva will come looking for you.”  
“She won’t.” I replied. “She jumped into a volcano.”  
“Wait, I thought you said-”  
“She jumped into a volcano,” I said, “after I twisted off her ankle and stabbed her with a blunt handrail.” I stared at him. “Tell me, do you think antagonizing me is going to go well for you?” I walked over to him, grabbing a gun from one of his goons, and shot myself in the head. The bullet sunk slightly into my head a bit before falling to the ground. It was a neat trick I’d practiced on the way up, and something people had practiced on me.  
My expression hadn’t changed, though my head buzzed with pain. “Go home, now. Go home.”  
They all left without another word.

I found my way back to the House of Horrors, and found Batman waiting for me.  
He wasn’t in the full Batman costume, instead opting for a disguise that made him look like a homeless man. I almost didn’t spot him, but the House of Horrors scares away any real hobos (along with rodents and termites) so he was easy to spot. I approached him, and for my sake, he didn’t bother to keep up the disguise.  
“You’re taking dangerous steps,” he said. “Others like you have tried.”  
“Others didn’t know what I know.”  
“Doubtful. Ra’s was able to figure out who I was the first time we fought. Freeze is capable of doing so, and Joker had enough smarts to put together all the clues. You’re not the first to know who Batman really is.”  
“I’m the first to see the cycle of your world from outside. You’re all continuing the cycle, rehashing the same plot over and over again. You could put a stop to this all, but you-”  
“What would you have me do? Go around killing every sick man and woman who holds up a convenience store?”  
“No! I’m saying you should expend your resources trying to help people rather than building a suit of Bat-armor that can take on Superman! What of Mrs. Frieze? She’s dying, and Freeze keeps doing everything he can to save her, putting innocent lives in danger! Harley Quinn was a dangerous woman to put next to the Joker, but she spent almost a year getting manipulated by him. Hell, the Cluemaster and Riddler literally leave clues for you to figure out. You could utterly wreck them in a weekend.”  
“You think I haven’t tried?”  
He was staring at me, unblinking. I couldn’t stand it long, and looked away.  
“You think I haven’t tried with everything I have? We have a dedicated research team working on Nora Fries. We have the best predictive algorithms for mental illness in any city, and the highest-paid psychiatrists and school doctors to deal with mental illnesses diagnoses. And we have intense screening of personnel for psychiatric wards to prevents vulnerable doctors from repeating Harleen Quinzel’s fate.” He stared at me, silently. “Why would you have thought it was any different?”  
I looked away. “Because it keeps repeating. Because the villains keep breaking out. Because… because despite all the good you do and intend, bad things keep happening. It isn’t working, your methods. Something is stopping you… oh.” Son of a bitch. “It’s Luthor, isn’t it?”  
“Lee,” he said, his voice low and growling in warning.  
“I’m not planning on hurting him,” I replied. “I’m going to talk with him. I’m going to change his mind.”  
“Can you really?” he asked. “Can you affect the most brilliant man on the planet?”  
“I don’t know,” I said, staring at my House, “but dammit, it has to be better than this. Someone has to break the cycle.” I started walking into my house. “I’ll go talk to him eventually, but in the meantime… I’m tired.” And then I shut the door behind me.  
The House was eerily quiet. Far quieter than it had been, with the moaning voices of the damned carrying out. They hadn’t been in any pain when I left… at least, not any physical pain.  
“House!” I yelled. “Get up here!”  
The old woman appeared. Her hood had been pulled back and she was standing straighter. “As the master commands,” she said, a hint of sarcasm in her voice.  
“Where are the others?” I asked. “There should be dozens of them.”  
“Hundreds,” she replied, examining her nails.  
“Yes, hundreds. Where are they?”  
“Gone.”  
“Gone?! You let them out?!”  
“No, idiot, they’re gone. They’ve killed each other.”  
I stopped. “What?”  
“What did you expect, idiot? That they’d end up sorrowful and change their ways? What would you have done, had you known you had all the sins of Vandal Savage and the Enchantress and the Demon’s Head on your conscience? What would you do?”  
I clenched my fists. I’d redeem myself. I’d do my best to use my evil skills for good. I’d become a hero. “I’d kill myself,” I said, so quiet I almost couldn’t hear myself.  
“And they did no different. You tried to make them human? You succeeded.”  
I fell to my knees. “No,” I whispered. “No. No, no, no… god, please… God, please no…”  
“Why are you groveling?” she demanded. “You made them human. You succeeded.”  
“I wanted them to live! I… I wanted to give them a second chance. I wanted to… I just…”  
She sighed. “Do we always get what we want?”  
I didn’t answer with anything but a shake of my head.  
“Does everyone deserve another chance?”  
Of course, they did, I thought of saying. But my mouth clamped up, and I remembered the Joker’s face, Shiva’s last grin, Ra’s’s horrified expression. I, of all people, knows that some people don’t deserve any more chance. I shook my head.  
“They didn’t want another chance. They chose to die to amend for what they’ve done. Their spirits are departed now, and if there’s any sense of justice they’re condemned forever.” She sighed. “I guess we’ll just have to hope the Presence gives lenience to those who’ve thrown themselves on the mercy of his court. Still, at least they’re not the ones that lived.”  
My head shot up. “What?”  
“The others. The ones who weren’t willing to off themselves. I’m not sure whether they were scared to face judgement or thought they could be redeemed, but-”  
“Where are they?”  
“In the dining room. Shall I take you there?”  
“Yes, please.”  
Black shadows wrapped around us, and the room around us changed to an actually pretty nice room with a wooden table and sturdy chairs. The table was set for eight, but I ignored the chairs in favor of the three people sitting in them.  
The first was a man with dark eyes, skin and curly hair, his hands clenched tightly on the table in front of him. Two horns like a goat’s curled from his forehead, and he wore a dark suit. The second was a woman in a shapeless sack of a dress, and she had middle-brown skin and blonde hair. The third was another man, with curly red hair and freckles. He looked very much like the stereotypical Irishman.  
They all stared at me when I entered. None of them said anything, just stared at me.  
I found I didn’t know what to say.  
I’d practically brainwashed these people into being good in a fit of extreme emotion. They were trapped in here for who knows how long, unable to do much of anything except stew on whatever emotions they had before. What was I supposed to do? I’m barely an adult. I don’t know how to deal with these things. I… holy hell.  
I’m in over my head.  
I thought being sent to another world was supposed to be easy. You get the magic sword and kill the beast, and if you’re Japanese you get a harem of girls who love you despite looking average at best. This wasn’t easy to figure out. It was just as complicated as my own world, but this time, I had to deal with demons and angels and everything in between. So, I said the only thing I could think of saying.  
“I’m sorry.”  
They continued staring.  
“I’m sorry I forced you into this. I’m sorry I murdered all your friends. I’m sorry you’re here now.” I felt like crying, but forced myself not to. “I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing. If you want to leave, you have permission to go.”  
They stared at one another for a moment, and then the red-haired one said “He’s really full of himself, isn’t he?”  
What? “What?”  
“Do you really think we can be broken so easily?” He continued. “Nah, mate. Ain’t how this works. We ain’t gonna let you deal with us dying that easily.” His eyes gleamed, literally a greenish color. “We’re stickin’ around. Ain’t nothing you can do to convince us otherwise.”  
“Our companion’s sentiment is… crude,” said the one with horns, “but we share it.” He stared at me, his eyes imploring. “We wish to… redeem ourselves, as it were. Maybe not become superheroes, but perhaps live good enough lives that we are not so judged when we die.” He stared at me with hard, smoldering eyes. “And you will give it to us. You gave us this morality, you will give us new lives.”  
“Um… okay, I can work with that. I just…” Where to begin? I had thought to get a psychiatrist, sure, but… gosh. Rebuilding someone’s life takes time and energy, which I have, but also expertise and skill, which I do not. Okay, think!  
I began pacing the floor. Think! This was a psychological problem, but it was also magical in nature. I had to figure out who would be willing to take on this case, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to Constantine. We need an expert, a truly… oh.  
“We have to go to Doctor Fate.”  
The woman snarled, the first sound I’d heard from her. I must admit I squeaked a little in surprise, but she seemed to calm quickly.  
“Forgive me,” she said. “I… cannot hear the magician’s name with anything but fear.” She didn’t say anything more after that, but from the way she curled up on herself, she was still scared.  
“He’s really the only option,” I said. “We could go to Sh- the wizard of Captain Marvel, but I don’t know how to get there. With the magician, I figure he’d be easy to find for someone attuned to magic.”  
“He is,” said the dark one. “Gleaming like a brilliant golden light against an ocean of white and black. Any of us could find him, given the chance.” He stared at me. “You would subject us to brainwashing once more?”  
“No!” I said quickly. “I just mean that the guy has a long history of being very very wise. I figure he’s the best bet for figuring out how to put you all together again.”  
“Well, I don’t like it,” said the red-haired one, “but it might be good for a lark. Alright, when do we leave?”  
“You haven’t all agreed to it,” I said.  
“I will do it,” said the dark one.  
“Me too,” said the blonde woman.  
“Whenever you like,” I amended. “Before we go, though… what are y-”  
“Our species?” the red-haired one said.  
“Presence no. I don’t want to refer to you as ‘demon’ or ‘thing’. What are your names?”  
“Oh. That’s a bit nicer than I expected. Name’s Sean.”  
“I am Michael,” said the darker one.  
“Sarah,” said the woman.  
“You might’ve guessed these ain’t our original names,” said Sean, “but since you ain’t using yours, we figured we don’t have to use ours, neither.”  
“That’s honestly fair. Give me a few minutes, and we can leave. Does that sound alright to all of you?”  
“You just said-”  
“I know what I just said! I have to make sure this place is taken care of, and get some better shoes.” I glanced down at the ones I had. There were no soles. “Be back in a sec.”  
I walked out of the dining room and found myself in the main library room in a non-Euclidian fashion. I tried not to think about it too much.  
“House!” I called. She appeared. “Thank you. Can you give me a new set of clothes?”  
She smirked and opened her mouth.  
“Please, spare me your smartassery. I’m trying to help those three.”  
Her mouth closed with a snap. “You are doing what?”  
“I’m trying to help them. I got them into this mess, but-”  
“Spare me your explanations. You should know you are doing something very stupid.”  
“I am well aware,” I said, glaring at her, “of my own stupidity.”  
“No, you are not. You are aware of your ignorance, but you are stupid to not try to supplement it with knowledge. You have done nothing to learn of the world you live in, because you foolishly believe you already know it.”  
“What would you have me do?!” I demanded.  
“LEARN, YOU FUCKING IDIOT!” she yelled at me. “You have access to a giant depository of magical information, and you have done nothing with it!”  
“I…! Oh. Of course, you’re right. It’s a little late to be studying books, though, isn’t it?”  
She groaned, and then placed a thumb on my forehead. I briefly felt warm and then nothing.  
THERE, THAT’S BETTER.  
Holy fucking shit there is something in my head!  
OF COURSE I’M IN YOUR HEAD. I CAN’T DUMP ALL THAT INFORMATION INTO YOUR HEAD WITHOUT TURNING YOU INTO A DROOLING WRECK OF YOUR FORMER SELF, EVEN IF THAT WOULD BE AN IMPROVEMENT.  
“Oh, thanks,” I said to the actual House. “Your sympathy is so appreciated.”  
She quirked a smile at me. “Rest assured, I will not affect your judgement or even speak to you unless you actively think it. I will be reading your thoughts, but of course, that’s a small price for you to pay for the knowledge I possess.”  
It was, but I didn’t like it. I didn’t want this person in my head, even if I got a huge boost in… “Oh, shit. This was how Cain felt.”  
“So it can learn,” House said.  
I wanted to tell it to shut up, but I had been wrong, so I let it slide. “Thank you, House, for helping me. Your assistance is… greatly appreciated.”  
She seemed outright shocked by that, so much so that she gave me a new set of clothes without another word, and then left. Like, she physically walked away, not vanishing like she usually did. I thought this was unusual, but her voice in my head was tight-lipped and wouldn’t say a thing.  
“Are you ready?” I heard someone say. “It’s been so long since you said we could go.”  
“I have a feeling, Sean,” I said, turning, “that we may not learn to like each other so much as tolerate one another.”  
“You wound me,” he replied, “but thanks. My closest friends all insisted they merely tolerated me.”  
“Were they really close friends?”  
“Yep. Close as anyone gets to me.”  
“Small wonder at that,” said Michael.  
“Before we begin,” I said, “we’ll need to tally expenses. Do any of you get tired?” Shakes of the head. “Do any of you need to sleep?” More head shaking. “What do you guys eat?”  
“Gold,” said Sean.  
“No, he doesn’t’,” said Michael. “He’s just a thief.”  
“I’m not a thief! I’m a fingersmith. There’s a huge difference.”  
“So, nothing for him,” I said. “What about you two?”  
Michael and Sarah both looked uncomfortable for a moment. “Blood,” said Michael finally, “although I can survive for a long time without it.”  
“Strong emotions,” said Sarah. “Can feed… don’t need.”  
Okay, coo. “Lastly: any weaknesses I should be aware of?”  
Sean raised his hand.  
“If you say ‘not having enough money’ I swear to Presence I’ll kick your ass.”  
Sean lowered his hand.  
“Great. Which of you has the best vision for seeing the tower of Fate?”  
Michael nodded. “I do.”  
“Okay. Let’s get started.”

I tried to ignore the stares as we walked. I was a somewhat infamous individual for having killed the Joker, and Michael’s horns didn’t make things any easier. Not to mention Sarah had a tail, long and prehensile (like a tiefling’s tail from D&D, except a little longer) that got everybody’s attention. Not to mention Sean himself, who walked like he owned the city and winked and pointed finger guns at everyone who made eye-contact with him.  
“Sean, when was the last time you were out and about?”  
“I dunno. The eighties? I think they were talking about this Bismarck guy retiring.”  
Oh, hell. 1880’s. “You’ve been gone for a hundred and thirty years.”  
“Hell! No wonder everything looks so different! Especially the ladies.” He paused a moment to blow a kiss to a rather pretty woman, and to my eternal envy she blushed. “They’re a lot prettier than they used to be.”  
“What about men?” I asked him. “When you went under, how would I stack up?”  
“You? About a three out of ten.”  
Well, that just about dropped me straight into a depressed state, but I determined not to let it bother me.  
We hiked northwest for a while, making detours to get around buildings and busy streets, and eventually the river. We were a silent procession, very few words exchanged except to redirect us. Until as we were crossing the bridge over Gotham River, Michael glanced back at me and asked, “Why are we going to the tower of Fate?”  
I frowned. He hadn’t stopped walking. “Because I don’t know how to redeem you three.” He was silent, so I continued. “I’m basically just a normal man when it comes to morality and the balances of the universe. Doctor Fate is an agent of the balance between the Lords of Order and the Lords of Chaos. If anyone knows how to transfer three people from one side to the other, it’s him.”  
“And if he doesn’t?”  
“Then I don’t have any answers beyond ‘try to be a good person’. Like I said, I’m basically a normal guy.”  
“You are not,” said Michael. “You knew how to defeat the clown and the master of dark magics. You knew who the man in the cowl was, and the Spectre has called you here. Whatever is planned for you, a normal man would be overwhelmed by it.”  
I wanted to make a snarky remark. I wanted to scream at him that I wasn’t called for that. There were so many things I wanted… but I simply said, “I might not be strong enough.”  
“You’ll have to be,” said Sean, flipping a coin he’d found. “You got yourself in this situation, you have to make yourself stronger.”  
I had many replies to that, but I said none of them. Instead, I asked, “So, Sean: what does it mean to be a fingersmith?”  
His eyes gleamed. “Well, let me tell you, there’s more to being a fingersmith than there ever was to being a pickpocket or a thief. For one, a pickpocket is just a cheaper version of a fingersmith, what with needing distractions to pull it off. A fingersmith could take your shoelaces without touching your shoes. There’s a finesse to it that’s not present with pickpockets.  
“And we’re no common thieves, either. We take only from those who can afford to get more, which means we need to know enough about who we’re taking from to know exactly how big a hotel they could buy at any given time. There’s more science to it than being a simple thief.”  
I stared at him for a moment and then started laughing.  
He looked offended. “Oy, what’s that for?”  
“You’re still a thief,” I said. “All the words you just described describe a thief. You’re just a very good one.”  
“Well, yeah,” he said. “A fingersmith-”  
I started laughing again.  
Up front, I could hear Michael chuckling a little.  
“Not you too!” bemoaned Sean. “I mean, come on! There’s gotta be more respect for the profession than that! Sarah!” He turned to Sarah, and stared at her with puppy-dog eyes. “You respect me, right?”  
She stared at him for a moment, and then snorted in a decidedly un-lady-like fashion.  
“Oh, come on!” He yelled to our continued laughter.

We ended up having to stop for the night. Despite the fact that they had better night vision than I did, there was no moon, and they couldn’t see much. We walked a road that had constant use during the day, and even a night there were a few cars traveling at slightly-faster-than-acceptable speeds. We’d given up on hitchhiking, as we scared people.  
We found a secluded spot in the middle of a nearby clearing to set down and wait for sunrise. Michael found a few sticks and started a fire by causing his hand to burst into flame and then lighting the sticks with it. I wasn’t expecting it, and almost had a heart attack.  
“Don’t just… DO that!” I said, sitting up. The others were laughing at me, but not mocking. “Presence! I didn’t know you could do that!”  
“Would it surprise you if I could do this?” he asked, running electricity down his arm.  
“Less so, actually, than before. That’s a pretty neat trick. All I’ve got in unbreakable skin.”  
“That’s something, at least,” said Sean. “Me, I don’t have any powers. I’m just a quick hand with the f- ahem, thievery.” He’d stopped saying ‘fingersmith’ a while ago. “I’ve just had a long time at it.”  
“How old are you?” I asked him.  
“Dunno,” he replied. “Pretty old. I was already old for my first memory, back in 1253. I have no idea how long I’ve been around.” He flipped a stick in his hands a few times. “Just been kicking around since then.”  
“Were you there for any famous event? Like any part of the renaissance?”  
“Nah, I was walking through China during that. I nearly got executed a few times.”  
“Well, what about… how about the discovery of America?”  
“Yeah, I missed a lot of that. I was stuck in a well for a few decades and it took me all that time to convince someone I wasn’t a ghost haunting it.”  
“Sounds rough.”  
“You think? I can’t count the number of bruises to my forehead from some girl who ran away screaming, dropping the bucket in the process. Well, good things can’t last, I suppose: I was pulled up by one the Knights Templar, and left in the House because I stole a few things.”  
“What did you steal?” asked Michael.  
“Nothing important.”  
“That seems unlikely.”  
“Alright, I stole most of their treasury by putting it in my pocket. I’d have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for a couple of wandering youth and their wolfhound.”  
“Some meddling kids and their mangy dog?” I asked, barely able to contain my amusement.  
“A fitting description. It sounds like you’ve heard it somewhere.”  
“Mm,” said Michael, humming softly, “are we all to tell our stories of being captured by the House?”  
“I’m still wondering about the mangy dog.”  
“I take that as a yes.” He stared off into the sky, tapping his hands on his knees. “I was a warrior, the greatest in my tribe. It has been a long time, and I have forgotten much, but I met a paleskin woman who claimed she would be able to give me power in exchange for prey. I was foolish, and agreed. She turned me into something much like you see now, but I was bloodthirsty, and were it not for my tribe’s witch doctor, I would still be killing. I was imprisoned in the house in my thirtieth summer, and there I stayed until recently, in my nine hundredth summer.” He stared at the stars. “I don’t recognize these constellations. Tell me, where in Africa are we?”  
“We’re not,” I said, a little hoarse. “We’re in North America.” I cleared my throat. “I am interested, though, in asking how you speak perfect English.”  
“Demons speak any language,” Sean interjected. “It’s what makes us so effective.” He rattled off a string of words that sounded vaguely Spanish. “Now, if you spoke Latin, you’d be able to see the wisdom of my words.”  
“Sure, sure,” I said.  
“North America,” said Michael, continuing to stare at the stars, “I see. So very far from home, my family long gone.” He smiled. “Perhaps I may return, some day. Would you allow me?”  
“I really don’t have any power over you,” I said. “If you want to see your home again, I won’t hold you back.”  
“Well, thank you. Someday, though. I feel I don’t deserve it, right now.”  
“That’s fair, but you really don’t have to stick around. After we get Doctor Fate’s help, you’re free to go home.”  
“…thank you,” Michael said finally.  
“I ain’t going home,” said Sean, flipping a coin.  
“That’s ‘cause you don’t know where home is.”  
“Um,” Sarah said. She hadn’t talked, but hearing her voice made the rest of us go quiet. “I was… am a succubus, spawned in the darkest pits of hell by a fallen priest and a witch. I was contracted by evil men, who forced me to kill others through any method I wanted. I did this for five hundred years before I was placed in the House.” She pulled her knees up to her chest. “It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t want to hurt those people.” She got quiet after that.  
I reached over, and patted her on the shoulder. “There, there. You want a hug?”  
“I’m fine,” she said, tugging her shoulder away from me. “I just don’t like thinking about it, is all.”  
I lowered my hand, and for the next several minutes, we sat in thought, or at least I assumed we were all thinking. The stars were out, and though the fire dampened their light most of them were visible. They were beautiful, and I could’ve stared at them for hours.  
I couldn’t because I heard voices talking. “What are you doing?” asked Sean. He was keeping his voice down, at least giving us the basic curtesy of letting us sleep.  
“I’m lonely,” said Sarah.  
“This is a bit public.”  
“Not for sex! I just…” She grunted, and I heard someone sitting down. “I’ve been with someone every night for as long as I can remember, and even in the House I slept next to someone. I don’t like being alone.”  
“What do you want from me?”  
“I just want to sleep next to you. I don’t mind if you hold me, but I just want to be warm. Sleeping by myself… I get nightmares.”  
I must’ve fallen asleep for her to get nightmares.  
“Fine by me. Lay down.”  
A SIDE EFFECT OF A FORMER SUCCUBUS, SAID HOUSE’S VOICE IN MY HEAD. THEY OFTEN DON’T HAVE AS MUCH ATTENTION LAVISHED ON THEM AS THEY DID DURING THEIR OWN LIFESTYLE. SHE’LL PROBABLY NEED SOMEONE TO SLEEP WITH HER FOR-  
Shut up, I thought back.  
I heard more shuffling, and then steady breathing. I rolled over, and tried not to be envious of Sean. I failed.

Dawn broke bright and early. I should’ve been stiff, as I’d been laying on a rock and several roots last night, but I was fine. It only hurt while I was lying down.  
Michael, Sarah and Sean woke up in that order. Sarah and Sean weren’t together anymore, and a part of me was disproportionately pleased that had happened.  
We spent most of the day walking in silence. Well, I was quietly fuming, and Michael was infuriatingly stoic, but Sarah and Sean were talking the entire time, though only occasionally and usually in lowered voices. I knew I was envious of Sean because a beautiful woman had chosen him to snuggle up with when I’d barely spoken to girls at all, but I don’t know why I was so continuously annoyed. Something about it was just… upsetting to me.  
I decided to say nothing about it, and I ignored the two of them for the rest of the day. Jealousy isn’t an attractive quality, so I walked towards the front with Michael. We were silent for a while, and then he asked, “Why do you do the things you do?”  
“Which things, specifically? If you mean, why do I walk with my feet pointed out, it’s because I was born with flat feet.”  
He chuckled. “Not that, though that is something I question. Rather, why are you attempting to make this world a better place?”  
“Because it’s the right thing to do.”  
He snorted. He sounded like a bull getting ready to charge. “Not good enough. Everyone on this world has a reason. The detective is dealing with his parents’ death. The warrior is fighting for equality. The man of steel is… well, he’s the exception, but only because his values are so strong.” He stared at me. “Your values are not as strong.”  
That hurt. “That hurts,” I said, “but I appreciate your honesty.” I sighed, and heard a little chatter from behind me. “Well, I might say I do this because I think I could do it better.”  
“Explain.”  
“I’ve seen the cycle repeated with the heroes and villains over and over again. I just think, maybe, that I could get in there, and end the cycle.”  
“You’re speaking in riddles.”  
“I’m sorry, I have to be vague to keep you safe. There are secrets that could break you.”  
“If you say so… though, I think with my experience, very few things would break me.”  
“Like, being trapped in an angry prison for centuries?”  
“Believe it or not, that is not the worst situation I have ever been in. I have fought other demons in the darkest depths of Africa. Once, when I was younger, and before I was a demon, I came upon a nest of vipers, each with six heads.”  
“I had no idea.”  
“Few do. There were six of them, and their mother was there, a woman who looked human but spoke like a snake.”  
“That sounds intense.”  
“Oh, it was! I had only my spear with me, my shield having broken some time ago. They came at me from all sides, and it took everything I had just to dodge their venomous fangs. For nearly an hour, I ran through a swamp, stabbing snake head after snake head, their fangs always one step behind, always just about to close in. When I finally clubbed the last snake, and turned to face the snake woman, I was damned near exhausted.  
“She moved like a snake and fought like a warrior. I had scars from her fingernails, teeth, fists and feet for years after I was done fighting her. I was covered in my own crimson blood and her greenish blood, and she only died because she tripped over an exposed root and fell onto my spear.”  
“That seems…” I couldn’t quite say it.  
“Anticlimactic?” he asked with a smirk. He laughed at my surprise. “It’s alright. I thought so, as well, when I’d been given time to rest and recover. A foe like that deserved to either kill me or be killed by me, not die in such a… undeserved manner.” He frowned. “When I die, I don’t want it to end like that. I want to go out in a blaze of glory. That’s why, even after the sins I’ve committed, it wouldn’t sit right with me to die without one final battle.”  
“Any battle?”  
“A great battle. One where I could feel myself tiring, getting weaker as assuredly as my opponent does, until one of us kills the other, or we kill each other. Then, I will die.”  
“…that’s kinda dark.”  
“It is what I want. Isn’t that what you want?”  
“What I want is to kill the evilest thing in the universe and then have a long party with lots of… food.”  
“That is not what you want.”  
“Alright fine, it’s not. I want peace. I want to carve out a little nook of this place, once I’m done cleaning it up, and settle peacefully. But I can’t do that if there are supervillains running around, and I can’t work on them because of all the magic in place!”  
“Magic?”  
“Yes, magic! The whole ‘underlying chaos and order from higher beings’! It’s keeping evil people in control longer than they would without it! Honestly! The number of evil wizards and witches is astonishing when it comes down to it!”  
“You would rather there were no magicians at all?”  
“No! I just- gah!” I thought for a moment. “I mean, magic is just so damned chaotic. It’s supposed to have rules, but it follows very few rules in general. The Zatara family is a noted exception, as they have to recite words backwards, but still, they can do just about anything. If there were some kind of limits of magic, perhaps there would be a limit on the… I guess I’d call it ‘evil chaos’ that keeps things like this.”  
He walked in silence for a while. The two behind us laughed about something.  
“We both have goals, then,” he said finally. “Help me with mine, and I will help you with yours.”  
“I’m not going to assist you with suicide.”  
“Not that! Throw me at stronger opponents! Give me occasion to fight warriors, and I will help you balance the scales in Order’s favor.”  
“You mean it?”  
“I swear it on my mother and father’s honor: I will do as you say.”  
Fate Wills That It Be Done.  
“What was-”  
The world warped around us, twisting like the scene had gone into a whirlpool. I lost track of my companions as my senses rotated themselves. I can’t describe it any better than that: you know how, sometimes, when you look at something and then tilt your head ninety degrees to the left, it blurs into the next position? Apply that to all your senses, and you’ll understand what it was like.  
When the world stopped tasting like different numbers, and my head stopped smelling like puce, I found myself standing in a forest of purple trees with pink blooms, and they were pine trees. The sky was a pinkish-yellow color, and the grass was blue. And I knew, somehow, that only one place could be this crazy.  
I was in the Tower of Fate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I'm back! I got tired of banging my head against a wall with my other stories, so I decided to bang my head against the wall with this story!  
> Thanks to everyone who's read this story. The fact it has 84 hits makes me happy. And to the three people who gave me kudos, thanks. It's mighty appreciated.  
> By the way, if anyone wants to read a great comic, check out The Goon. It's a great story about a man who beats everyone who fights him... and all the pain he has to deal with.  
> Anyway, I'm a bastard for ending it here, but the chapter was fifteen pages long, and I'm going to write more. I'm having a lot of fun with this, and I hope y'all are, as well.


	8. One Ending

What gave it away was the loud voice in my head mentioned FATE earlier.  
Hey, House, I said in my head, You got a read on this place?  
Silence. Of course. The Tower would cut off my connection to the outside world. Figures.  
I was left to wander through the strange forest, the trees recoiling at my touch, the grass growing longer every time I stepped off it, yet never getting above my head. It was like it was growing and shrinking at the same time, without changing either way.  
I kept walking. I had a feeling this air was supposed to do something deadly, but I couldn’t tell. My skin was kinda tingly, but beyond that I didn’t know whether it was acid, poison or… something else. Magic is hard to understand.  
Damn magic! I shook my fist at the sky for good measure.  
I did know, even if I didn’t like accepting it, that I’d need to move on, and no amount of curmudgeonly attitude would help me. So, I picked a direction that sounded like it would progress somewhere, and started walking.  
The landscape changed around me, and I think I’m using that phrase accurately, because I didn’t feel like I was walking anywhere. I was walking, of course, but I didn’t feel any forward momentum. It was like the landscape was moving around me, and going from acid-trip trees to brickwork and buildings over the course of several seconds.  
It made my head hurt.  
Then brickwork was gone, and I was in a… you know what? I can’t really describe it. Just look up the kind of stuff that would make MC Escher have a lie down, and you’ll get a good idea of what I was looking at. And before you ask, yes, I am referencing Terry Pratchett: we all need a grounding rod of some kind.  
I began walking up a pathway that looped in on itself several times. This place was really odd. I can’t stress that enough. It was beautiful, I’ll give it that, but I was by myself. I could’ve really used some kind of company.  
“Well, what have we here?”  
“Jeezes!” I said. I turned to the voice. “Sean? What are you doing here?”  
“Oh, you know,” he said, leaning against another section of the path like it was a wall, “looking for the nearest pub.” He flicked away the cigar he was smoking, and it fell up. “Jeez. You’d think this place would be safer.”  
“I don’t think anything about magic,” I replied. “It’s… bleh.”  
“Good summary, mate.”  
I sighed. “Have you found your way around here?”  
“Nope. I woke up in a room with screaming ghosts and a single slice of blueberry pie.”  
“Did you eat it?”  
“What of course not.”  
“…was it good?”  
“It was delicious.”  
“Cool. How do we navigate? And, more importantly, what are we supposed to do here?”  
“Well,” said Sean, gesturing to the path, “this path led me to you. There’s only one other way to go. If it was me, I’m thinking this path is taking us somewhere, and if we follow it, we’ll at least be away from here.”  
“Can’t argue with that.” We started walking. “What do you think Fate wants with us?”  
“Like, the general, ‘all things happen for a reason’ fate, or the doc?”  
“Doc Fate. What do you think he wants?”  
“Well, on a fundamental level, I’d say he wants to restore the balance between chaos and order, but on a more personal level I can’t exactly say what he wants with us at this particular moment. It’d be best if we can give him that, and then get what we want, preferably in trade and without consequence.”  
“That seems unlikely.”  
“We all have dreams. Mine is to have the most valuable thing in the world.”  
“It might take a while to buy it.”  
“Not BUY, HAVE. Just to hold it for a little while, in my hand, would be enough for me.”  
“Valuable, huh?” I paused to consider. “Well, there are the Green Lantern rings.”  
“None of those. Too common.”  
“Boom tube operator?”  
“Same thing.”  
“Gold Kryptonite? As far as I know, there are only three pieces.”  
“Nah. Singular.”  
“Hm… well, the most powerful and valuable things I can think of would be a White Lantern, Brainiac’s ship, and the Helmet of Fate itself.”  
“Ah. How convenient.” He cracked his knuckles. “I just need to find the guy himself.”  
“You really shouldn’t try to steal his hat. He’s absurdly powerful.”  
“I’m going to ask very politely to hold his hat, thank you very much. I’m not suicidal, like Michael.”  
“Michael’s not like that,” I said, a bit more heated than I had to be. “It’s different.”  
“What, like noble? It’s the difference between shooting yourself in the head with a shotgun and taking a pill that makes you die quietly. You’re dead either way.”  
“That’s harsh, considering what’s happened to your fellow inmates.”  
“You think I care?” He turned and stared at me. “Alright, let’s talk about my fellow inmates. You’re the one who forced them to relive their actions in a new light, and pushed them to that level of despair. You’re the one who left them alone and disappeared for almost a year. That means you’re the one with those deaths on his head. Not me. I just survived.”  
“What else could I do?”  
“You left them alone, like frightened children, and believe me, they were frightened. They didn’t know what to do. They desperately wanted to reprieve themselves of their crimes, but several lifetimes’ worth of sin left them without the ability to figure out what they were supposed to do.” We stopped walking, and he turned to face me. “You don’t know what you’re dealing with, here.”  
I clenched my fists at my side, and restrained myself from speaking for a moment. “No, I don’t,” I said at last. “I have no idea what I’m supposed to do here. I thought I was making the right decision.” I didn’t say anything else after that. I thought it would sound too much like whining.  
He grinned at me. “Do you know what this means? It means you’re not perfect.” He patted me on the shoulder. “If there’s anything I’ve learned about having a conscience, it’s that doing the right thing is always hard, and you can make poor decisions in the heat of the moment. Just try to make up for it later, yeah? And remember, you’ve already experienced the worst when it comes to protecting people under your command: never make the same mistake again.”  
“Yeah,” I said. “Thanks. Weird advice, coming from a kleptomaniac.”  
“What, what’s that?”  
“You don’t…? Well, it’s a clinical definition for someone who has a strong compulsion to steal things.”  
“Perfect! That’s me!” he cracked his knuckles. “I’m a kleptomaniac.”  
“Well, it’s better than fingersmith.”  
“Oh, don’t go on about that ag-”  
Then I was alone.  
He had disappeared so quickly, so utterly, that I didn’t even realize he had disappeared at first. It sounded like he had just stopped because he saw something spectacular, or scary or something. I had to look over and nearly die of a heart attack when I saw he wasn’t there.  
And then I wasn’t there. Technically, I must have moved to a different location, because I wasn’t where I had been, but I had the feeling I had vanished and my mind was following close behind. It left me nauseous.  
I was in some kind of museum, now. It had a lot of wax sculptures and paintings, oil mostly, of moments of extreme human emotion. The sign of the exhibit said, “Moments of Human Happiness” over the top. A scene of a man, lying next to a woman in a bed who was reading a book. A family in the park. The innocent verdict for a woman who had committed no crime. Dozens of images, of perfect happiness, collected in this place for… whatever Fate was thinking.  
As I strolled through this place, I came upon a scene of a girl being returned to her mother after an ordeal. The father was standing close by, profusely thanking a police officer. It looked like London, 1800’s. Sarah was standing in front of it.  
“Sarah?” I said aloud. She turned and nodded at me, and then turned back to stare at the wax figures. I stood by her, and stood silent.  
“My father abandoned me for a cigarette,” said Sarah at last. “My mother forced me out to make room for her keepsakes. I never had a family like this.” She placed her hand on the glass. “I wonder what it’s like.”  
I was quiet for a bit. I didn’t know what to say. I ended up with the lame copout: “I’m sorry.”  
“Why do you say sorry?”  
“You haven’t had the childhood you deserved, and I haven’t treated you well.”  
“The first you cannot seriously apologize for.”  
“Well, that’s part of being human, I guess.” I smirked to hide the fact I didn’t know what to say. “I still mean to let you go. You can find a way to make a family.”  
She smiled at me. “Are you sure you’re not just jealous of my attentions to Sean?”  
I was surprised at that. “I thought I was being unobvious.”  
“I can sense all emotions, including yours.”  
“Oh.” A brief pause to collect my thoughts. “I suppose a part of it is because I’m jealous of Sean, but more than that, it’s the right thing to do. And, if I’m going to be better at this than most heroes, I need to be better than them. And to do that, I need to be good.”  
She smiled at me. “You’re sweet.” And she kissed my cheek. I felt my face turning red. “I don’t think I can leave, though. The House… it’s meant to attract darker elements. And since we know we can be brought back into the fold, I must do all I can to help them.”  
“We don’t know that,” I said. “I failed the others.”  
“We are still alive. And while I may… I may be scared, and tired, and pained, I can move forward. You’ve given the three of us a second chance, and as surly as Sean is, even he knows it.” She frowned at me. “Will you still call me a failure?”  
“…no.”  
“Good. Now, chin up. Something’s ha-”  
I Am Fate.  
“Jesus Christ!”  
Not Quite: I Never Met Him.  
I turned to stare at a pure black void, with a figure decked in gold and blue floating before me. His cape, boots and gloves were gold, his chest blue, and a gold symbol, the ankh, decorated his chest. And, of course, covering his head was a solid gold helmet, with two angry-shaped eyes staring back at me.  
“Doctor Fate,” I said. “Do I have the pleasure of speaking to Nabu or Kent Nelson?”  
“Both,” he said. They said? There were two voices talking at once. “You are-”  
“Lee,” I interrupted.  
“That is what we were going to say. Your true name is yours to keep.”  
“Oh. Cool.”  
“You are here for the demons in your care, then?”  
“Yeah. I wanted to help them. I wanted them to adjust, and I needed someone understanding to talk to them.”  
“Have you succeeded?”  
“…I think so. But… indirectly. I put them with other damaged people, and let them talk. I learned their life goals, and where they’ve been, and what they can do.” I laughed. “I suppose this whole trip wasn’t necessary.”  
“Everything is necessary,” they replied. “Fate wills it be so.”  
“For what?”  
“There is something you came here to do. More than that, a secret hope in your heart. You spoke of the chaotic nature of magic.” They tilted their head. “Would you be willing to strike a blow for the Lords of Order?”  
“What did you have in mind?”  
“This Tower is currently under attack. Two foes are inside: one my greatest enemy, and one a Lord of Chaos.”  
“Okay… so what do you want me to do?”  
“I want you to end them both. Their deaths will allow me to steal their power, and use it for my own.”  
“That doesn’t sound very heroic of you.”  
“I am not heroic. I am a Lord of Order. There is a difference between ‘order’ and ‘good’.”  
Ah, right. Of course. “More importantly, this will remove the ever-changing rules that prevent you from acting directly, right?”  
“You are correct.”  
“Okay. I assume whomever I have to kill has it coming?”  
“They do. Mordru and Wotan are their names.”  
“Oh, okay, then.” I had jumped straight through panic back to utter calmness, although my heart was pounding in my ears. “You said your Tower was under attack?”  
“Yes. I cannot intervene. The Spectre has made it your testing grounds, and the Lords of Order have thought it a convenient test.”  
“Oh, yay. Okay, send me there.”  
The world vanished around me, and then I was struck by a bolt of lightning.  
I was back in the purple and pink area, but this time several dozen of the trees were burnt and gone. There were two humanoid forms hovering in the air: one a man with a long beard, long-flowing hair and a black cape, the other with green skin, an awesome beard and Wolverine hair, as well as a green and red costume.  
Currently, Sarah was throwing fireballs and trees at the green one (Wotan) and Sean was… were those coins?! He was throwing coins at the other guy (Mordru) with the speed of bullets! Where was he getting those?!  
“’Bout time you got here!” said Sean. He threw another coin, and ducked behind a tree when another lightning bolt streaked by. “We could use some help.”  
“Ah, yes,” I said. “I’ll just… fly up there.” They were higher than I could jump.  
“Kneel, mortals!” said Wotan. “I am invincible! You cannot stop me!”  
“And I am a Lord of Chaos!” said Mordru. “You will bow before me!”  
Right. These guys monologued.  
The tree I was at shuddered, and then slowly lifted into the air. I glanced at the yellow aura surrounding it, and then at the same yellow aura around Wotan. I pulled my hand back and rammed it into the tree, up to my wrist. My brain said I’d damaged my fingers, but I knew better.  
The tree hovered up into the air with several of its mates, right over Wotan’s head. I pulled my hand out, and held onto the tree until I was just over him, and leaped off.  
I didn’t hit him, as he had moved, but I landed on Mordru’s head just fine. He made a sound like a demonic chicken squawking and then I started hitting him.  
It wasn’t doing much. He reached up, pulled me off, and tossed me aside. He didn’t even look at me when he did it.  
I slammed back into the ground like a sack of potatoes. I heard laughter.  
“You really think you can strike me down?” he asked. “Fool! You are more foolish than I thought!”  
“Then you’re an idiot!” I said. “Everyone should think I’m stupid!” Nailed it.  
I was hefted into the air, and carried toward Mordru by nothing. He stared at me. “You’re so weak,” he said. “Why would the Spectre choose you as his familiar?”  
“Mordru!” said Wotan. “Stop playing with your food and get back here!” A wave of fire washed over him, which he ignored completely.  
“Silence, mortal!” said Mordru. “The Helmet of Fate and the Amulet of Anubis cannot escape our grasp!”  
Oh, I see. They wanted the powers of Doctor Fate for themselves. “Quick question.” I said.  
“Silence!” said both the wizards.  
“Who’s going to wear the Helmet and the Amulet?” I asked.  
“What a stupid question!” said Wotan with a sneer. “You waste your last breaths on this?”  
“Well, you know, it’s a tough question.” I jerked my head at Mordru. “It seems logical that he should wear the Amulet and you should get the Helmet.”  
“What are you doing?” asked Sarah.  
“Your petty questions will give you nothing,” said Mordru.  
“Why should I get the Helm?” asked Wotan.  
“Well, I mean, no offense, but you’re weaker, right?”  
Wotan’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”  
“Look, no offense, like I said, but it’s hard to compare a Lord of Chaos against… well, you know…”  
“Your feeble tricks will not work on me,” said Wotan.  
“Even if he speaks truth,” said Mordru.  
“What kind of truth, ‘Lord’?”  
“I am much stronger than you.”  
“That has nothing to do with this! I deserve the Helmet of Fate, for I have more experience in Earthly magics!”  
“I have handled far greater powers than you ever will, mortal.”  
“I am no ordinary mortal! I am the reincarnated Wotan! I have lived thousands upon thousands of lives!”  
“And I am endless. Your point is wasted on me.”  
“Well,” said Sean, “Wotan has gone up against Doctor Fate more often than you have. He’d know what he was like.”  
“Why are you helping me?!” demanded Wotan.  
“Your comments are… strangely out of place,” said Mordru. “What is your stake in all this?”  
“Stake? No, no stake. I just don’t want to see the Helmet of Fate fall into undeserving hands when I die.”  
“I am undeserving?” demanded Mordru. He turned to Wotan with his eyes blazing. “That is your opinion of me?”  
“There is none who could be more undeserving than you!” Wotan replied. “Were those powers wasted on Nelson, still you would be less deserving!”  
In a snarling roar, Mordru threw me with his powers through the air. I slammed into something flesh-like with a crunch, and I heard Sarah groan in pain. I glanced up to see the two sorcerers casting spell after spell at each other.  
It was really pretty. I admired it after I got off of Sarah, of course, but watching it was like watching two fireworks shows fighting each other. Green sparks and blue flames, red energy and black light (not what you’re thinking of: light that is LITERALLY black) all flew at each other, lighting the trees on fire and on… not-fire(?), scorching and churning and freezing the earth around us, until it wasn’t so much a duel as a two-man battlefield.  
“What am I looking at?” I asked Sarah.  
“Wizard duel,” she said. “You can’t really predict which way these things are going to go.”  
“Hooray,” I mumbled.  
The fight ended so fast I could barely register it. It involved Wotan chanting a bizarre phrase that made my hair stand on end, and then a sizzling bolt of green-maroon energy sizzled from his fingertips and smashed into Mordru. The endless Lord of Chaos rocked, and then his body crumbled into ash.  
That wouldn’t be the end of it. Mordru would need to take a new host, but he’d probably need a repository of magic to be able to stand up to Wotan.  
A wisp of blackness wormed from the pile of ash and up Wotan’s nose.  
“Oh,” I said. “This may be bad.”  
Wotan’s eyes shifted from green to red to blue, then an occult blue that was eerie and cold. Then he smiled.  
“Oh, did you think you could take my body?” Wotan said, a tinge of Mordru’s voice coming through. “I’ve though through that. There’s no way to take my body while I live. Ah, and I see you’re trying to escape. It will do you no good! Long ago, I had runes inscribed into my body, so that any creature who tried to wrest control away from me would lose all power! You have nothing! I have achieved your power, and mine! The Helmet and the Amulet will both be m-”  
A hand shot through Wotan’s chest, covered in Wotan’s green blood. “Surprise,” said Sean mildly. He attempted to pull back, but his arm wouldn’t budge. “You’re dead now,” he said. “Would you mind letting go?”  
Wotan grinned at him. “I may die, but I live again! And I will take you with me!” His body started to glow red, and then the red started to transfer onto Sean.  
Sean grimaced. “Yep, that feels like bad juju.” He pulled out an especially large coin from his pocket, which grew two ten times its size, and then used it to slice off his arm at the shoulder. He barely grimaced when it happened.  
Sean stepped away from the arm at a quick pace, and then stood next to us. “That’s what you wanted, yeah?” he said. “Him dead?”  
“Well, yeah, I guess I did. Thanks.”  
“Sure thing.” We watched as Wotan collapsed to the ground, the line draining from his eyes. Then his spirit (I assume) arose from his body, looking like he did before he died, but a little more see-through.  
“Curse you!” he said in our direction. “I’ll get you in my next life!”  
A hand shot out of Wotan’s body, this time not Sean’s. It looked a great deal like Mordru’s, actually. “You’re not going anywhere,” said Mordru’s voice. “Not unless you get me out of here.”  
The hand started drawing Wotan’s spirit back in. “No!” screamed Wotan. “I can’t do it! Leave me be, or we’ll both be trapped!”  
“So be it,” replied Mordru. In the blink of an eye, Wotan’s spirit was drawn back in, kicking and screaming, to his corpse. And then there was silence.  
“Is he dead?” I said aloud.  
Sarah walked over, and kicked the body. Nothing happened. “Seems dead,” she replied.  
“He is trapped,” came the two voices of Fate.  
All three of us jumped. “You can’t just sneak up on people like that!” I yelled at Doctor Fate, the host of Nabu, the greatest sorcerer and maybe being in the entire world.  
“Do not test him, boy,” said a creepy voice.  
I turned, suddenly afraid, to see the visage of the Spectre standing behind me.  
“Hi,” I said, “good to see you, Spectre.”  
“It is not, and lying to my face is unappreciated.”  
“You know this guy?” Sean asked.  
“Yeah, he’s kinda the reason I’m here.”  
“Oh.” Sean nodded. “Okay, then.”  
“Mordru and Wotan are sealed within Wotan’s corpse,” said Fate’s voices. “Wotan will no longer reincarnate to new bodies, and Mordru will never seek a new host. For all intents and purposes, they are dead.”  
“I take it that’s not the end of it,” said Sean.  
“Oh, gods,” said Sarah. “It never is, is it?”  
“No,” said Fate. “There is one more thing to do.” He held out his hand, and a glowing ball with dozens of magical symbols on it floated in front of him. “Using the Helmet, the Amulet and the power of Spectre, we can end the lord of Chaos for good. But there is one more thing we need.”  
“A sacrifice?” My mouth was dry.  
He nodded. “A willing soul, one who would be willing to give up their life in exchange for ultimate power to another. With this, we could end Mordru and Wotan permanently, and establish the rules you wanted to magic.”  
“Not like this!” I said. “I don’t want someone to have to die for me!”  
“Mate,” said Sean, “you shouldn’t’ve gotten involved with this if you weren’t willing to lose soldiers.”  
“What would you have me do?! I can’t just send someone to their death like that!”  
“And you’re still needed here,” said Sean.  
That hit me. “No, I’m not. I could-”  
“Keep calm, martyr. You’ve done this much to change the world, I expect you’ll do more.” He turned to face Sarah, and held out a quarter. “Care to call?”  
She stared at it, then looked at Sean. “Heads. Best of three.”  
“Alright.” He flipped it.  
Heads, He flipped it again.  
Tails. He flipped it one more time.  
Tails.  
The two of them stared at it for a moment, and then Sean sighed. “Boy, that nearly killed me. Bad luck, eh?”  
She smiled at him, her smile a little shaky. “Just bad luck, then.” She walked over to me. “Don’t worry, Lee. I’ll be fine.”  
“You’re going to die,” I said. I found I was tearing up. “I couldn’t- you still have more to live for.”  
She took my head in her hands, and kissed me on the forehead. “I’m doing this because I want to,” she said. She looked me in the eyes, and smiled. “Goodbye.” Then she walked away.  
I should have stopped her. I should have run up to her and held her back. But I couldn’t. Michael showed up, and Sean stood with him, both holding me back. All I could do was scream at her not to do it, to think it through before she just tossed her life away like that.  
She wouldn’t listen. She walked up to Doctor Fate and the Spectre, and they said something in low voices. The two spirits of Mordru and Wotan emerged from Wotan’s body, and then Spectre reached into Sarah’s chest cavity, and pulled out her own spirit. It was covered in blood and grime, but shining, brilliantly.  
In a flash, all three spirits vanished, leaving only the five of us alone.  
“It is done,” said Fate. “Within one hour, the Lords of Order will impose their will upon magic, and rules will be applied. It is what you wanted.”  
The fear and frustration at seeing Sarah leaving turned to anger. I pulled my arms out of Michael and Sean’s grasp, and marched straight up to the Spectre. “You did this to me.”  
“I did nothi-”  
“Don’t give me that shit! You brought me into this world, and it sure as hell wasn’t to pass judgement! You can do that fine on your own! So WHY THE HELL AM I HERE?!” I pointed at Sarah’s body. “Am I just here to watch people die? So I can keep failing?!”  
“You have killed the clown, the immortal, and the previously unkillable.”  
“And people have died because of me!”  
“What did you expect?!” His eyes burned, and he loomed before me without getting any bigger. “Did you think this crusade would be bloodless?! Did you think you would be able to live out a fantasy life?!”  
“Well it’s better than what you gave me!”  
He reached out with his hand, and I was bent backwards, almost to a ninety-degree angle. It was excruciating pain, and I couldn’t do anything but sit there.  
“Do not test me,” he said. His voice had returned to its normal, lifeless tone. “Your body will not break, and your mind is your own, but how much pain could you be put through before your mind breaks? Do you want to see what that’s like?”  
I grunted, trying to draw a breath. “Go ahead,” I finally got out, strained by my position, “make my day.”  
He smiled at me, and it was that cold smile yet again. “That is why I brought you,” he said. I was righted to a standing position. “That utter defiance of the odds, the determination to see things finished. Combined with your knowledge of this world, this will make you wreak havoc on the scum of the Earth.”  
“Go to hell,” I growled.  
“I have.” He smiled again. “Now, to return you to your House.”  
“The rules are changing,” said Fate. “When you awake in your House of Horrors, the rules of magic will exist. Every magic user will have their own limits: it is up to them to discover them. Farewell, Lee. May our paths cross again.”  
“I sure hope not,” I replied. Then the world faded to black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, lookit that! A new chapter updated!  
> This should be the wrapup of most of the magical stuff of the DCU. I knew that, as long as I was dealing with the people like the Spectre, there would be bullshit and Deus Ex Machina I could pull out of my butt at a moment's notice, and I didn't want that kind of temptation. So, now we have a world where magic will have more defined rules, which will make it more like superpowers than anything else. Before you ask, yes, I am taking inspiration from Brandon Sanderson, but I'm not going to make the rules over-arching. Instead, it'll be more like Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, specifically the stands, where every power set has grounded rules and linking abilities.  
> We'll see if I succeed.


	9. Picking up Pieces

We were in the House of Horrors, and I had a steaming pile of anger to deal with.  
“She is gone?” Michael asked.  
Sean sighed. “Yeah,” he murmured. “Dead as the others.” I heard a ping as a coin hit the floor. “Dammit.”  
I can’t let this be the end of me. I can’t let this break me. I won’t. I was clenching my fist, and I let it go. “Dammit,” I muttered. “Dammit is right.” I cleared my throat. “House!”  
She appeared in the middle of the room. At least, I thought it was her. She had the same pale skin and glowing eyes, but she was younger, like mid-thirties. It surprised me.  
“You’ve changed.”  
She grinned at me. “I thought, since I was no longer commanded by Faust, to take up my own form.” She spun, her robe twirling around her. “What do you think?”  
“What do I think? Sarah’s dead, House.”  
“I know.”  
“It’s all my fault.”  
“I know.”  
I just stood there. The three of them were staring at me.  
“Has magic changed?” I asked her.  
She nodded. “It has affected me. I am now limited to creating one thousand rooms, though I can freely control, create and destroy all of these and anything inside.”  
“That doesn’t sound limiting.”  
“It is when you consider I could make infinite rooms before.”  
“Small change. What else has happened?”  
“Well, bonds can be formed between any magic-wielder or magical creature, such as the one between you and me. Limited knowledge can be shared across it: it’s about the same as if we were talking, but at the speed of thought.”  
“Thereby limiting what you can share. That’s fine. What else?”  
“I can bind magical creatures, by turning their own magic into a prison. They have to be inside my dimension, and I have to be within ten feet of them, closer for stronger magical creatures like angels.”  
“Oh, right. Angels. Forgot about them.” I paused for a moment. “Is there any way to send a message? Get the word out about what’s happened?”  
“No clue. And since I don’t know, that would be a negative.”  
“Crap.” I thought for a moment, and then paced the room. “Sarah may be dead, but I won’t let her dream die with her.”  
“How romant-”   
“For the love of god, don’t finish that. She wanted other demons like her to find respite here, to become better. And that is what we’re going to do.”  
“How are we going to do that?” asked Michael.  
“Bloody hell,” said Sean. “Sarah’s barely cold, and all of you are already making plans?!”  
“You can mourn, if you like,” I said. “Nothing’s going to happen right now. There should be some rooms for you in this place somewhere.”  
“Is that a dismissal?”  
I nodded. “If you like.”  
Sean and Michael looked at one another, and then left the room down one of the hallways. I watched them leave until they were out of earshot.  
I sighed, and felt like I’d just jumped into an Olympic-sized pool of concrete. “I’m tired,” I said. “I thought being in this universe would be more fun.”  
“You have clearly never been here before.”  
“…clearly.” I frowned. “How to get the word out…? Is there anyone you can communicate with?”  
“Not anymore.”  
I winced. “That’s unfortunate.” I began to pace the room.  
“No apologies?”  
“No. I won’t regret what I did.”  
She smirked at me. “If you need way to spread the message, the Justice League are capable of world-wide communication.”  
“Yeah, but can you imagine them listening to me? Of them all, only Wonder Woman would even consider listening to me, because the others have extremely strict no-killing rules.” I continued pacing the room, biting my nails. I couldn’t chew through them, because my nails were invulnerable.  
“You are agitated,” House commented.  
“’Course I’m agitated. I-”  
“I can read your mind. Be truthful.”  
I groaned. “Fine. I’m sad, okay? I’m sad and angry and frustrated and I don’t know what to do. I wanted to save Sarah, but then someone else would have to die, and then I couldn’t save them, and…” I growled. “I don’t know what to do.”  
House tilted her head and held her chin. “In many of my books, it is recommended to hold humans and tell them things will be alright.” She walked over to me, and held me in a really awkward semblance of a hug. “There, there. Things will be okay. Are you comforted?”  
I did. I laughed. “Thanks, House.”  
“There is irony in your tone.”  
“I feel better because you tried, not because you’re good at this.”  
“That is to be expected. Hugging was not encouraged while Felix was in charge.” She patted my back like it was a scary dog, and then leaned back. “Good?”  
“I’m fine, House. Honest.”  
“If you say so. What are you going to do?”  
“Well, nothing I can do right now will spread the word about this place. I have an errand to run: do you think you could watch the place for now? And, if a supernatural menace appears, please send Michael and Sean after it.”  
“How long will this errand take?”  
“Depends on how long it takes to walk to Metropolis.”  
“Walk?” She laughed. “Nonsense! I’ll get you there instantly!”  
“How?”  
“This door.” She walked over to the entrance of the House, and shut it. Then she opened it, and the entrance was somewhere else. It was another city, but unlike Gotham, it had modern architecture and looked a great deal cleaner. “I have three abilities, now. First, I can turn magic against its wielder to make a cage. Second, I can freely control the space inside this door. Third, I can connect this door to any other door in the world.”  
“Very useful,” I said. “Thank you, House.”  
“That again. Why do you do that?”  
“Do what?”  
“Say ‘thank you’. That.”  
“Because I want to thank you?”  
“Why? I have to do it.”  
“But you still did it. I couldn't do this on my own. Think of it like a quirky human feature: we say thank you, normally, when people do things for us, even if they have to.”  
“Felix never said that.”  
“Felix Faust was an immortal asshole. You’ll find most assholes won’t even thank a bus driver.”  
She frowned. “But… why?”  
I sighed. “House, I have no real idea what I’m doing. Anyone around me who has an inkling of what they’re supposed to do it, and who do it with utmost efficiency, is a blessing to me. So, again, thank you for helping me. I couldn’t do this without you.”  
She stared at me a moment. “Well, fine then. Thank you for introducing me to your mind. There were… many interesting things in there.”  
“…you’re welcome.”  
We stood there staring at each other, and then I walked out the front door.  
I’M STILL HERE, BY THE WAY.  
I’m aware. Are we going to be having this closeness all the time?  
NOT REALLY. I’M JUST A VOICE BUZZING AT THE BACK OF YOUR HEAD.  
Rad. Okay.  
She was silent for a while, allowed me time to look at Metropolis as I walked to the Lexcorp building. The city had a sleek, modern look, with smooth glass surfaces and bright, open parks rather than the close-packed, dismal location of Gotham. In more than a few places, I saw the advanced technology that was gradually leaking out into the world, like some magnetically-levitated cars and the holographic phones. And, of course, the S logo was everywhere.  
Bumper stickers, t-shirts, flags, everywhere I turned the S-shield could be seen. An advertisement on one billboard declared this city the “Official City of the Man of Steel”, featuring a picture of Superman himself standing with his hands on his waist. The photo looked cheesy, and the sunrise behind him just didn’t help.  
THAT IS THE MOST DANGEROUS PERSON ON THIS PLANET? AND YOU THINK OF HIM THAT WAY?  
Well, yeah. He’s basically just a decent guy.  
ODD THAT YOU SAY THAT AND YET YOU WARNED ME ABOUT HIM.  
Well, he’s the most powerful decent guy.  
I continued walking, after asking a man with his son where I could find the Lexcorp building. The route I was taking took me across a bridge, a new, white-steel structure with power grids and pedestrian walkways and, as it turned out, Wi-fi. The Lexcorp logo was plastered across the entire thing.  
It was a really, really cool design, all sleek and modern, and was a real shame when someone blew it up.  
A purple figure stepped out from the hole that had appeared in the middle of the bridge, white lines like tape running across his body. There was fire erupting from his fingers, and he was holding a lone civilian, a woman in a business suit.  
WHO IS THIS?  
Parasite. He wants to eat Superman.  
A second later, a red/blue blur zipped past and slammed into Parasite, somehow depositing the businesswoman on the bridge without even ruffling her hair. I’ll give the guy credit, he knows how to save people in style.  
I don’t.  
“Get off the bridge!” I yelled. It was louder than expected, coming from invulnerable vocal chords and lungs that can suck in a great deal more oxygen. I think glass rattled to my side when I said it, but at least it got my message across: several people starting back up their cars, and those that were inoperable were discarded and left behind. That left three cars, two sedans and a van, furthest away, sitting next to the hole in the bridge. Just had to get them out of here.  
The bridge started creaking. The ground tilted.  
The cars started sliding towards the hole.  
House, disable my physical limits.  
IF I DO THAT, I WON’T BE ABLE TO RE-ENABLE THEM. YOUR BODY WILL BREAK IF YOU LOSE YOUR POWERS.  
That’s fine.  
ON IT. I’LL START WITH YOUR RIGHT ARM.  
Something slipped away from the feeling in my right arm, and I clenched it. The van’s doors were shut tight, the woman in front dazed and confused. I think she was in shock. The kids in the back were desperately trying to get out, but the doors wouldn’t open, even with them unlocked.  
This one was easily solved by opening the door. “Child lock?”  
“Yeah,” said the two boys. They immediately walked over to the driver’s door and pulled out their mother. “I don’t get it. I’m fourteen.”  
“Just go. Talk later.”  
The second car’s driver’s side door was jammed shut. No amount of pulling the handle would open it, and the woman on the inside was bashing her shoulder against it to force it open.  
“Get back!” I yelled to her. She covered her face with a coat, and I smashed my hand through the glass.  
It hurt like a bitch, but my hand was through, allowing me a good-enough grip on it to yank the rest of the door off. She scrambled out of her car, and started running to the edge of the bridge.  
That left the last car. The edges of its doors were sealed shut by the blast, as it had been closed. The people inside were pushing and kicking, desperately trying to get out. I jogged over to punch the car open.  
The bridge shifted again, and the car started rolling to the edge.  
I couldn’t think. I just had to leap over the car with newly empowered legs and grab the front. It was all I could do to keep the thing from sliding over the edge, and still I was being pushed back.  
I pulled back my legs and slammed them through the asphalt, giving me grips enough to prevent this thing from falling any farther. My knees started to buckle. The human body is strong, but it’s not strong enough to hold a car for very long.  
I stared up at the people through the car window: a man with his two kids. A boy in a booster seat, a girl, about ten. They were all scared. The girl made straight eye-contact with me, and in a moment, I saw her expression go from scared to despairing. She knew I was going to fail her.  
I couldn’t do anything. I had to get them out of here. I had to… why is the car getting lighter?  
The car, lifted up into the air. I let go and watched it rise, and then I saw him. Cheesy red cape, giant S-shield, and bright colors that would make a neon sign designer call him gaudy, and it was awesome.  
The Man of Steel himself.  
Superman.  
He was smiling at me. “Thank you,” he said, “but I’ll take it from here.” The one curl hanging down over his forehead bobbed as he nodded at me, and then flew through the air to the other side of the bridge.  
“Woah,” I said.  
YOU ARE HIGHLY ENAMORED WITH HIM.  
Damned right. He’s awesome.  
I supposed I should get off the bridge. It was teetering and about to fall. Given that it wasn’t likely to hurt me, though, I decided to saunter off rather than be in a hurry.  
“Lee, right?”  
Damn, he was fast. I jumped and turned to face him. He was floating a few feet off the ground, arms crossed, and smiling just enough to show that he was friendly.  
“Superman,” I said. I tried not to look away and looked embarrassed. “Um… thanks for saving those people.”  
“You’re welcome.” He floated down, and landed on the bridge. I glanced down to make sure his red boots were actually touching the ground. “What brings you out to Metropolis on such a fine day?”  
“I wanted to speak with Lex Luthor.”  
He frowned. “Listen-”  
“I’m not going to kill him.”  
“I wasn’t going to ask. You look like a man on a mission, but he’s smarter than you. There’s not much of a chance he’s going to listen to you.”  
“Do you mind if I at least try?”  
“No, I don’t mind. He’s likely to want to meet you, anyway.”  
“Thanks, Superman.” There was a brief pause. “By the way, you wouldn’t happen to have a flight ring on, would you?”  
“A what?”  
“A flight ring. I’m tired of walking everywhere. I’d like to fly.”  
“I’m not sure what a flight ring is, son. Batman said you knew a great deal, but perhaps you know less than you think you do?”  
“Come on, be serious. A flight ring? From the Legion of Superheroes?”  
“Lee, I’m sorry, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.”  
My skin felt cold. “Booster Gold has one?”  
“I don’t know any Booster Gold… Lee, are you alright? Your skin’s turned clammy, and your heart’s racing.”  
“I’ll be fine. I just… sorry, I have to be on my way.”  
I started walking, but I stopped. I had something else to… “Superman, I happen to be in possession of a supernatural location that can store ancient abominations, easily. If you and the League ever run into something you need stored away, I can take care of it.”  
“What will you do with them? Kill them?”  
“Rehabilitate them, if we can. Keep them from normal people if we can’t.”  
He stared at me for a few moments. “Well, you’re not lying. Alright. I’ll tell the rest of the League.”  
“Could you also mention that we take in anyone who needs a place to stay?”  
“Like, a refuge?”  
“Yeah, I guess you could call it that. Any supernatural entity that wants to turn their life around, we’ll be there.”  
“A prison, and a refuge? That doesn’t seem wise.”  
“Well, House is a fair bit more powerful than anything else, so I think we’ll be fine.”  
“Not everything. I’ll spread your message, but try not to punch above your weight class. It was nice to meet you. Have a good day.” He saluted me, and then took off into the air.  
I waited until he was gone. “Shit.”  
WHAT’S WRONG?  
“The Legion doesn’t exist, or Superman doesn’t know about them.”  
THE LEGION OF SUPERHEROES, CORRECT?  
“Would you please stop talking so loudly?”  
‘Is this better?’  
“Yes, much better. Yes, that Legion. If they don’t exist, and they haven’t come back in time to recruit Superboy, then that means I’ve altered the future.”  
‘That seems rather big-headed of you.’  
“What else could it be? No matter what happened in the DCU before this, the Legion always existed. No matter how dark things got, the Legion always formed. But if I’m in a world where the Legion doesn’t exist, and I’m the difference, then it’s got to be because of me.”  
‘That’s absurd. Does that mean you’re destined to end up here?’  
“That… is a very disturbing thought. It means something has been forcing me to come here since… well, a while.” And it also means I was meant to be taken from my life. The bastards. “But that’s a mystery to throw on the pile for now. I need to speak to Luthor.”

The lady at the front desk looked at me long enough to look judgmentally at my clothes, and then said “Name?”  
“Lee.”  
“Purpose of visit?”  
“To see Luthor.”  
“Reason for visit?”  
“I’m the man who killed the Joker.”  
She looked up at me over her glasses. “Are you, now?”  
“Who else would claim that feat?”  
There was a moment of silence as a battle of wills took place. I hate how everyone on this world is prettier than I am. It makes staring at them that much more difficult.  
She finally sighed, and lifted the phone. “A Mr. Lee to see Luthor.”  
“We don’t know a ‘Lee’.”  
Female voice. That would be Mercy Graves.  
“He says he killed the Joker.”  
“One moment.” Honest-to-god elevator music started playing, and the front desk lady and I were left staring at each other.  
“So,” I said. “Who’s your favorite-”  
“I don’t like superheroes.”  
“-sports team?”  
“Oh.” She looked flustered by the question. I asked it because, to me, it’s an easy question, but I guess it’s not the first people think of. “Well, the Raiders are doing pretty well this season, but the Metropolis Minutemen are staging a comeback. I think they’ll go against each other in the next week or so.”  
“What about the Gotham Gargoyles? They’re pretty hyped up for the next game against the Star City Crusaders.”  
“Overhyped. Honestly, the coach is good at putting plans together, but it’s usually after the game’s already over, and there’s no way to win.”  
“And yet, they’re still in the game.”  
“Honestly, I think they’d be in the game even if they lost every time. They’re just so goddamned determined.”  
The line clicked back to active. “Mr. Luthor will see Mr. Lee, now.”  
“Right. Sending him up.” She closed the line, and then directed me to the elevator. “It’s nice to see someone who’s head isn’t always in the clouds.”  
“And it’s nice to meet another sports fan. See you around.” I stepped into the elevator, and took it straight to the top.  
The entire top floor of the Lexcorp building was dedicated to Lex Luthor’s office. Mercy Graves awaited me, a woman with blonde hair and a tough demeanor. I was surprised by this, because the most notable version of her I know has red hair. I guess life isn’t perfect.  
She patted me down for hidden weapons. She was methodical about it, but business-like. Other than being so ruthlessly efficient, she ignored what she was touching, so I was fine with it.  
When she’d determined my pants held no weapons, she sent me in to Lex’s office.  
He was sitting in a room whose primary color was white. Smooth white surfaces, glass and reflective fixtures, and even a white cup where he kept his identical white pens. It was so very high-tech, with touchscreens on every surface and holograms out the wazoo. The man himself was sitting at his desk, ignoring me in favor of charts and data.  
“What do you want?” he asked. “I’ve already got a full day planned, so if you can get on with this, then please do so.”  
I sat in the chair opposite him. “You’re an idiot, you know that?”  
“The intelligence tests would say otherwise.”  
“Only an idiot puts stock in those tests.”  
“Yes, but idiots designed the initial tests, whereas I designed the ones that take into account the nine types of intelligence. It’s fascinating, but I suspect you didn’t come her to discuss how intelligence works.”  
“Did you design your tests to account for the fact that you always lose?”  
His right hand twitched, and something on his screen blinked red. “Numerous factors must be taken into account when discussing losses, such as lack of information.”  
“And hubris.”  
“Yes.” He grit his teeth. “Was there a point to this conversation?”  
“Well, I’m just thinking that, if you were really an eight-level intelligence-”  
“Tenth-level.”  
“-then you wouldn’t lose to Superman all the time.”  
“I lose because of unforeseen circumstances.”  
“And hubris.”  
“You said that before. Why do you insist on repeating it?”  
“Did you ever think it might be better to beat Superman in a different way? Maybe take away financial instability, make it so he’s unnecessary?”  
“No, he must be beaten in full view of everyone. Only then will they stop relying on him.”  
“You are an idiot, then.”  
He stared at me like I was an insect. “What?”  
“You’ll make him into a martyr. They’ll love him more, and hate you for it. Honestly, you’re dumb if you think that’s not going to happen. Did you even SEE what happened with Doomsday? They loved him more when he was dead!”  
“Simple matter. It’s easier to-”  
“Alex, let me just stop you there.”  
“I am Lex.”  
“Okay, Al. You’re the bad guy, here. Superman will do whatever he can to always save the day. He’ll die before he lets his morals break, whereas you… you’ll become the monster everyone believes you already are. Alexandra, do you know what people like most about you? It’s the fact that you stole forty cakes.”  
“What.”  
“Four times ten cakes. And that’s terrible.”  
He stood there, trembling with rage. “Everything I do,” he said, as if each word galled him, “is for the good of this world.”  
“And yet, when the Lantern war happened, you got an Orange ring. Greed. What does that say about you?”  
He had stopped talking and was glowering at me.  
“Face it, Al,” I said, standing as he did, “the truth is, you’re a sad, pathetic man who can’t bear to have anyone better than you are, because you’re just that pathetic.”  
He grabbed me by the shirt, and threw me through the window. The word for this is ‘defenestration’, if you need more Scrabble points.  
The building was very tall, but I was still honestly surprised by how long it took me to slam into the concrete. It was only about ten seconds, but it was still longer than I expected.  
I didn’t crush anyone, which is a positive side of the immense amount of pain I was in for a few minutes. Eventually, I groaned and leaned out of the small crater I had made.  
There was a large crowd looking at me. “You alright there, son?” asked an old man with a cane.  
I wheezed. “Never better!” I lied. I stood and brushed off my clothes. “I just insulted Lex Luthor, and then he threw me out the window.”  
“That bastard!” said a nine-year-old girl. Her mother immediately shushed her.  
“No, don’t shush her,” I said. “He’s an awful person.” I sighed. Then I started walking away.  
Nothing’s changed, I suppose. Luthor will have people believe I fell out the window because of renovations, or because I tried to kill him, or some other crap like that. Not likely, the second one. There would be outcry against it, as I was the one who killed the Joker. Even then, it wasn’t like prison could hold me, at this point.  
I kicked a stone, watched it roll done the road, bouncing off the rubber of a tire before coming to a rest in front of a café, and the figure in front of it.  
I stopped. “Cain?” I called out. I jogged up to her.  
She turned to me. “Oh… Lee.” We stood in silence for a few moments. “Um… how are you?”  
“Fine. You?”  
“I’m okay. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”  
“Yeah, a few months.” God, I was bad at this. “You, uh… you want to get coffee? Wait, no, I can’t get coffee, I don’t have any money.”  
“That’s fine, I can pay.”  
“Thanks.”

An order and a couple of coffees later, we’re sitting in a booth and trying to chat.  
“You think the weather will clear up?”  
“It’s supposed to rain for the rest of the week, but it’ll get sunny later.”  
“Oh.”  
And then this would be followed by a long pause where we avoided the topic entirely. We went through friends, foods and fights in this manner, still dancing around the issue.  
This all ended when her ring started glowing, and then a cyan copy of Cain appeared on the bench beside her. “Okay, let’s discuss the elephant in the room,” she said. “Hi, Lee. Yes, Star is still there.”  
It was an almost perfect copy of her, just tainted cyan. Not even uniformly, either: the skin was a darker cyan than the jacket, and the eyes were so light they were almost white. I was so impressed I nearly forgot to speak.  
“Well, hi,” I said. “How’s the body-sharing thing going?”  
Star groaned. “Ugh, not great. I don’t like walking in meatspace as often as I thought I would, so we have an agreement to let me make a body of solid light whenever I want out. It’s better for everyone that way.”  
“That’s… neat.”  
“It’s fine,” said Cain. “I can’t take the ring off, but at least I’m in control of my body.”  
“Except when you sleep,” said Star.  
“I am NOT going to stop sleeping.”  
“Why?”  
“It’s… creepy.”  
“Says you. You’ve never tried it. Ask him.”  
“He sleeps!”  
“Sometimes,” I mumbled.  
“What?”  
“I don’t really need to, though. I don’t need to eat, drink or breathe.”  
The two of them stared at me, and then at the coffee I was currently drinking.  
“Yes, this is a commodity to me.”  
“And there you go,” said Star. “Nobody needs to sleep.”  
She groaned. “You all are insane.”  
I laughed, and Star did too, and after a moment, Cain joined in. When we stopped, I found I couldn’t look anywhere other than my coffee cup.  
“I’m sorry,” Cain and I said at the same time.  
“What?” I asked.  
“No, go ahead,” she said.  
“Well… I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have made a deal involving your body without you being present to consent.”  
“Yeah, that was a pretty sucky thing to do. It’s okay, though.”  
“No?”  
“I guess not, but I’m okay with the way things have gone. Star isn’t that bad a second brain, and I overreacted. I forgot how lonely it was when I first got here, and I left you in that House by yourself. I have to say I’m sorry for that, too.”  
“Thanks,” I said. “It means a lot to me.”  
We stared at each other for a few moments, until Star said, “Alright, now kiss.”  
“What?” I said.  
“No thanks,” said Cain a second later.  
“Oh, phooey,” said Star. “You two are no fun.”  
Silence returned for a moment. “What are you going to do?” I asked Cain. “My offer still stands. You can join me at my House. There’s a couple other people there now, but we have room.”  
“I’d love to,” she said.  
“But…?”  
“What? No buts. I’d love to. Can I grab my friends?”  
“Oh. Sure. Yeah, are they nearby?”  
“Yeah, we’re renting an apartment. You can help me pack.”  
“Okay, uh, sure.”

The apartment was nice enough, even if it was a small building with only five stories and a peeling paint job. I tried not to judge. It’s hard to think a peeling apartment is bad when you live in a place called the House of Horrors. Cain lived on the top floor, but she didn’t bother with the stairs or the elevator. Instead, she created a platform of solid Cyan light, and levitated the two of us up to the fire escape.  
“I see you’ve been practicing,” I said.  
“The holographic woman didn’t tip you off?”  
“Point taken.”  
Cain knocked on her window. There was a thud from inside, panicked footsteps, and then the window was flung open by a brawny woman with long, flowing hair. “What’s going on?!” she demanded.  
“We’re moving out, Zhanna.”  
“Since when? And who’s this?”  
“Hi,” I said. “I’m Lee. I killed the Joker.”  
She seemed startled at that. “Oh. I’m Zhanna. Daughter of Aquawoman and Wonder Man.”  
“Parallel Earth?”  
“You know it.”  
“Cool. I’m from a world without superpowers, where everyone is much less attractive.”  
“You have my sympathy.”  
“Thanks.”  
Zhanna turned back to Cain. “We’re moving in with this guy?”  
“He has a house.”  
“How big?”  
“A thousand rooms,” I said. “Potentially.”  
“Potentially?”  
“My house is an ancient prison for evil monsters that’s bonded to my brain.”  
“Oh.”  
Silence reined.  
“Can we come in?” asked Cain finally.  
“Oh. Yeah, sure.”  
The window opened more, and I slipped in, followed immediately after by Cain.  
It was what you’d expect from two… no, there’s a third… three women living together. It was tidy, but stuff piled up here and there, sweaters and coats ending up on chairs instead of coat racks. An organized chaos, if you care to use paradoxes.  
“Where is your house, exactly?” Zhanna asked me.  
“Um… a pocket dimension?” I replied. “Hard to say. She operates with magic.”  
“Ah, I see. Never could master magic.”  
“Yeah? You’d think, being Wonder Man’s daughter, they’d’ve taught you.”  
“Well, it’s hard to practice magic when the world is being destroyed by psychotic robots.”  
“Oh… did they…?”  
“They died. It was over ten years ago. I’ve gotten over it.”  
“Well, you still have my condolences.”  
“…thanks.”  
There was a rumble as something bounced (I’m being literal) out of one of the adjoining rooms and splattered (also literal) in the middle of the living room. Then something rose out of it like the most adorable version of the T-1000 you’ve ever seen, and said “Hi!”  
Zhanna sighed. “Does he know about Click?”  
“I haven’t told him,” Cain replied.  
“I think I can deal,” I said. I leaned down next to the olive-skinned woman. Before you mention I should just say ‘Mediterranean”, I should tell you her skin was the light-green color typically found on army trucks. She was wearing purple and pink, and her hair was crinkly, like African braids, and a deep red color. Her eyes were solid black with white specks throughout.  
“Who are you?” she asked me. She was grinning from ear to ear. Literally. Mouths are not supposed to work like that.  
“I’m Lee,” I replied. “I assume you are Click?”  
“Yep! Nice to meet you! I like you!”  
“Well, thanks. I very rarely get told that.”  
“Is it ‘cause you like to kill people?”  
My smile faltered at that point. “I don’t like it,” I said. “It’s necessary.”  
“Mmkay.” She turned to the other two. “I like him. He’s cute.”  
“Buh,” I said. It’s been like thirty years since someone called me cute.  
“He passes,” said Zhanna. “Let’s get packed.”  
“Pass what?” I said.  
“The cute test,” said Cain. She was using her ring to throw stuff into boxes. “If Click says you’re cute, then we like you.”  
“What?”  
“Click’s an empath,” said Zhanna, carrying way too much stuff for someone of even her building. “Can’t read conscious thought, but she can affect emotions and read them from others. Among other things.”  
“Other things?”  
“Best we can figure, she’s from a planet where the Martians and the Tamaranians settled down and intermingled. She can shapeshift a little, fire energy bolts and, of course, fly, but she’s not as strong as other half of either species.”  
“Nope nope nope,” said Click. “Not for me.”  
“Click, would you please get your things together?”  
“Okey dokey!” She walked away, doing this weird half-melting gait where it looked like her form wasn’t holding together completely.  
“Does she often do that?” I asked.  
“Yes,” said Zhanna. “I didn’t see what she was doing, but the answer is always yes. She does weird stuff.”  
I had nothing to say to that. “Do you need help with packing? I’ve got super-strength.”  
“How strong?” asked Zhanna. She was carrying a used widescreen TV, bigger than she was.  
“Limits of human strength,” I replied.  
“Oh, good. We need someone to help with the fridge. Do you mind?”  
“I don’t, but what about Cain’s ring? Can’t she just make a large hand truck and move it herself?”  
“She’s already doing other stuff, like folding all our laundry. We can do the heavy lifting.”  
“Alright. Hold on a sec, though.” Hey House, could you put the entrance to the House itself in the bathroom door?  
‘Easy enough.’  
I walked over to the bathroom door and swung it wide. Inside was the dark library of the House of Horrors, and House herself was standing inside.  
“We’ll bring the stuff through here,” I said. “The other two living there are Michael and Sean, but they’re taking some time to…” My mood dampened rapidly. “…to mourn a friend of ours.”  
Zhanna set down the box she was holding. “When did your friend die?”  
“This morning.” Holy fuck, this morning? It felt like a month ago. “She sacrificed herself to help everyone.”  
“At least she didn’t die for nothing,” Zhanna replied. “That hurts.”  
I chuckled. “Yeah, well, it sucks either way.”  
“I didn’t mean-”  
“I know. Just… let’s just work, okay?”  
She nodded.  
We spent the next several hours moving furniture and boxes into the bathroom door, where House used her powers to center them in the library. We’d sort them later, but for now it was enough to get them out of here.  
When the last box was in the House, House said “If that’s everything, I’ll arrange rooms for the three of you. Your things will be in there.”  
“But how?” asked Cain. “You don’t know whose stuff is whose.”  
“Then we’ll sort it later.” She tilted her head. “Lee, something is happening. I think I’m about to be cut o-”  
The room was changed into a simple bathroom.  
“Well,” I said to the cracked beige paint and smudged tile, “that’s ominous.”  
“What’s going on?” asked Zhanna.  
“Star says there’s a field around the city,” said Cain. “She says she’s seen fields like this before, with invaders from the sky.”  
“Aliens?” I said. “Never a good sign. There are far too many hostile aliens in this universe. But what aliens is it this…” I stared at the edges of Metropolis.  
An enormous dome covered the entire city, cresting up into the sky around the tallest buildings. I’d seen works where something was this gigantic, but the sheer scope of something this synthetic and yet so large is mind-boggling. It turns the sky a slightly yellow color, and the city was bathed in that tint.  
Of course, all this paled in comparison to the giant, skull-shaped ship hovering above us, with metal tendrils and empty, soulless eyes.  
“Brainiac,” I said. “Fuck.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, over a hundred hits. Thanks, guys!


	10. Origin End

This was not good. To say that would not NEARLY be enough to account for the complete fubar of a situation I was currently in.  
I turned to the three women. “That’s Brainiac.”  
“I’ve heard of him,” said Zhanna. “Hasn’t Superman always beaten him?”  
“Yeah, and it’s always a hard battle. We’re going to have a bad time at this.” Shit shit shit. What to do? “I need to get onto that ship.”  
“You’re crazy,” said Cain. “This is Superman-level stuff.”  
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m going to graduate from rogue’s galleries early. Let’s go.”  
Something wrapped around my torso. I glanced down to see Click’s hands, engorged to huge proportions, wrapped around me. She was breathing heavily.  
“Don’t go,” she said. “Kill you. He’ll kill you.”  
“You know Brainiac?” I asked her.  
She nodded, let go, and sat down where the couch had been. She pulled her knees up to her chest and seemed to shrink a little. “Brainiac. He killed them all. My whole family. Everyone.” She put her face on her knees. “I don’t want you to die, too.”  
“I…” I won’t die. I don’t know if I can die. Wow, that’s dark. Wait, have to focus. She needs help. “Click, we have to do this. We have to help the people of this city.”  
“Do we?” asked Zhanna. “They didn’t do anything for me. I nearly starved to death on the streets, and they ignored me.”  
“Then call it self-preservation,” I said. “Brainiac, at the very least, is going to shrink down this city and put us on a shelf. At most, we’re all going to BECOME Brainiac.”  
“That doesn’t-”  
“Zombies, Zhanna.”  
“Okay. Let’s kick his ass.”  
“You can’t,” said Click. “He is everywhere. He is something from beyond time, a creature of absolute malevolence. He’ll kill you all. He’ll kill you all.”  
“Bullshit,” I said. Zhanna, Cain and Click all whirled their heads to look at me. The first two with anger, the third with surprise. “Brainiac is form the planet Colu. He’s a collector of cities.”  
“He’s a dark wizard.”  
“He has sufficiently advanced technology. He’s smart, but not invulnerable. He’s been killed in a few different ways.”  
“How?” asked Cain.  
“You’re seriously going along with this?” asked Zhanna.  
“I mean, we’re going to die if we don’t.”  
“Says him! I’d rather take my chances without him.”  
“He’s trying to save us!”  
“He’s trying to get us killed! Do you really want to follow him towards the giant angry skull in the sky?!”  
“Well, at least that’s the right direction! We have to do it!”  
“And why is that?!”  
“Because it’s the right thing to do!”  
“Bloody hell!” said Zanna. She kicked a wall. “Bloody fucking hell! Alright, fine! We’ll do it your way! But if we die, I’m kicking your ass!”  
“That may not be an impossibility,” I said. “We’ll get back to that. For now, we need to know if Brainiac has any openings in his ship.”  
“Like the giant eyes in the skull?”  
“Those are most likely windows, but maybe. Cain, can you throw check to see if that’s a window?”  
“One moment,” said Cain. She hovered outside the apartment, and hefted a newspaper box thingy with her powers, turning the cyan energy (cyanergy?) into a sling. This she pulled back and launched.  
The box flew in a ruffling of paper and wind. It was hard to see from here, but after a moment, something clunked into the eye on Brainiac’s ship, and bounced off.  
“That’s not an entrance,” I said. “We’ll have to think of something else.”  
I watched Brainiac’s ship. There were metal tendrils hanging from the back of the skull like dreadlocks, but they were limp and inactive. There were drones hovering around it, scoping out the city with blue spotlights traveling into and out of the ship. And all the while, those dead eyes watched the city like a bored conqueror.  
“Hm,” I said. “I’ve got an idea.” I turned to Cain and Zhanna. “Neither of you are going to like it.”  
***  
“This is dumb,” said Zhanna.  
“I know,” Cain replied.  
“Really dumb.”  
“I got it the first time.”  
“I mean, we could be leaving the city. I bet I could dig a pretty good hole underneath that force field.”  
“I highly doubt that.”  
“So you can say other stuff.”  
“Of course, I can.” Cain activated the energy of her ring, and a dozen cyan-colored soldiers with rifles appeared behind her. “I’m just trying to focus.” One soldier with a rocket launcher stepped forward and fired it into Brainiac’s ship.  
The explosion cleared, leaving no visible marks on the ship. However, the large squad of drones that were converging on their position seemed to show Brainiac had taken an interest.  
“We’re going to die,” said Zhanna. She drew her ax from her back, which was designed to look like a mixture between a battleax and a trident, with two wickedly sharp heads and a spike in the center.  
“Well,” said Cain, “at least it will be interesting.” She created more soldiers, and a giant sledgehammer. “Let’s do this.”  
***  
The drones were being destroyed on the left, and dismantled on the right, but down the middle they were pressing Cain and Zhanna. Every drone they destroyed revealed two others, just waiting nearby and ready to strike.  
The drones were creepy, in that they looked like giant flying terminators with Brainiac’s ship for a head. They never spoke, never made any unnecessary movements, and fired relentlessly. I was mildly heartened to see they had no strategy besides ‘advance and shoot’, but that’s hard to feel heartened about when there’re so many of them.  
Fortunately, they were also rather stupid.  
The way they attacked was by aiming at whoever actually attacked them. Rocks and things hit their heads, and they didn’t even notice, because it came from a non-hostile source. You needed to actually attack them to draw their ire. So, walking up to them, and, say, clinging to their weird spine and ribcage didn’t draw their attention at all.  
This is exactly what Click and I did. Click seemed scared the whole way over, which I found surprising because a rock had gone through her head a few minutes ago, and she didn’t even notice.  
The drones carried us up to the mothership, not even noticing our presence. When they entered Brainiac’s ship, we dropped off and slunk away into the shadows.  
“How did you know that would work?” asked Click. She was clutching my hand.  
“Well,” I said, “Brainiac is a smart guy, but he doesn’t understand human emotions. It’s incomprehensible to him to put yourself in harm’s way because you want to save someone else. I believe he thinks Superman defends Earth because Brainiac is a threat on Supe’s turf.”  
“Which means?”  
Good god, she was terrified. She’s clutching to my arm so hard a normal man would lose circulation. “It’s okay,” I said. “You’re not going to do any fighting. I just need you to use your empathetic abilities, and I’ll take care of the rest. Okay?”  
“…okay.”  
We started walking through the hallways. There wasn’t any need to hide, as all the drones ignored us, and Brainiac probably knew we were here already. Navigating was a bit of an issue, as I don’t read the language of Colu, and whatever you’ve heard, principles of design don’t carry over when you’re designing something for yourself.  
As we were walking, Click glomped further onto my arm, refusing to let go. Eventually, I thought to ask her about it. “Are you okay?”  
“…no.”  
“Do you want to talk about it?”  
She was quiet for a while. I picked a route I thought would lead us to the bridge.  
“My home… Brainiac came for it. He wanted information, so he took everyone he could and sucked up their memories into some machine. They were all so scared… their last moments, I mean. They didn’t know what was going on, and they were too terrified to think about anything else. His ship stank of it. I…” She gripped my arm harder. “They couldn’t think. They just screamed. And I could feel them, feel them all slipping away, becoming children again. The children… so many children…” She hugged my arm and buried her face in my shoulder.  
I wasn’t sure what to say. I’m not that great with emotions at the best of times. I thought I’d been helping Harley Quinn, but that ended badly. Is it any wonder I read comic books so often? I didn’t know what to say. I desperately wanted to say something, and yet, nothing I could think of would help.  
She eased up pressure on my arm. “…thank you,” she said, “for feeling that way.”  
Oh. Duh. Empath. “I’m sorry I can’t say anything better,” I said, “but we’re going to put Brainiac in the ground. Trust me.”  
“He is massive.”  
“Then we’ll need a bigger grave.”  
The door before us opened, and we were on the bridge, staring at thirty different screens and the back of a man in metal armor, with green skin.  
“Impressive,” he said. “I didn’t expect you to make it up here.” He turned and stared at us. Three glowing circles on his forehead in the shape of an inverted triangle declared him the monster I was looking for, and the cold calculus in his eyes all but confirmed it.  
Brainiac. Superman’s deadliest foe.  
I am about to kill him.  
“Howdy,” I said. “It’s an experience to meet you.”  
He stared at me. “Modified human male,” he declared, “with modified metahuman genome. Genome is insuppressible. Unusual.” He turned to Click. She hid behind me. “Martian-Tamaranian hybrid female. Possesses weaknesses of neither. Possesses half-strengths of both.” He turned back to me. “Neither of you are a threat.” He turned back to his screens and ignored us.  
“I’ve come to tell you something,” I said.  
“Nothing you have to say could possibly interest me.”  
“What about the true creators of the universe?”  
He turned back to me. “Name?”  
“Two. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. The creators of the universe.”  
He stared at me a moment. “No, I think this does not interest me.”  
Shit. That was a good one. Who wouldn’t want to learn their life was just a piece of fiction? Good thing this is real life, and that stuff only happens in…  
Well, anyways.  
“Okay, then,” I said. “How about the reason Superman keeps beating you?”  
“Numerous unforeseen circumstances. If I had known of some of the things the so-called Man of Steel had in store, he would not have won as often as he did.”  
“What’s his track record, again? In beating you where it mattered?”  
“97.3827%.” He turned back to me. “This warrants consideration. What is the reason Superman repeatedly stops me?”  
“Emotions.”  
“Do not trifle with me.”  
“I’m not, and if you weren’t such an idiot, you would see it.”  
“I am a twelfth-level intellect. I am capable of calculating every cubed value infinitely while you can barely get to one hundred. I am not an idiot.”  
“Well, there’s nine different kinds of intelligence, so-”  
“Do not waste my time. What is the reason Superman defeats me?”  
“Emotions.”  
“You are trying my patience.”  
“And how is that? How is it that you can grow irritated? Isn’t that an emotion?”  
“My programming is designed to expedite social conversations in order to more effectively achieve results and data.”  
“Because you’re angry?”  
“No, because I wish to receive the information faster.”  
“He’s angry,” said Click. She said it loud enough that Brainiac and I could both hear it.  
Brainiac stared at her, and then at me. “Untruths. Lies. I feel no emotions.”  
“Well, then, let me paint you a picture. Is it logical to assume that, once you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?”  
Brainiac stared at me for a moment. “It is logical,” he said at last.  
“Well, then: what are the key difference between you and Superman? Assume that differentials in strength and intelligence cancel each other out.”  
“Reasoning?”  
“You use your intelligence to enhance your weaponry, giving you a boost in strength. Superman has no need to boost his strength but is not as intelligent.”  
“The reasoning is fair.”  
He stood silent for ten seconds. I couldn’t hear his breathing. I didn’t know if he was breathing.  
“His emotional state,” Brainiac said. “In that he has one. Why is this essential?”  
“Because emotions drive us,” I said. “They make us take another step when we’d ordinarily give up. That’s something you’ve never understood, even burying your own emotions.”  
“I have no emotions.”  
“Scared,” said Click. “He’s scared.”  
“I am not scared!” he yelled. “My programming does not allow for fear!”  
“Anger. Disgust.”  
“Maybe not your programming,” I said, “but your brain is based on organic fibers, yes? You’re still from Colu, which means you started with an organic brain. That organic programming is interfering with the synthetic programming of your machines.”  
“Nothing interferes! I am Brainiac! I am far more intelligent than any evolved ape from your planet!”  
“Grodd would be insulted,” I replied. “But you’re wrong. You’ve always been stupid in one specific category: emotions. Specifically, yours.”  
Something popped from my right. I glanced over to see something smoking from Brainiac’s control panel. I glanced back at Brainiac, and he was staring at me with wide eyes. No, not me, I realized: her. Click.  
Click was walking towards Brainiac, her hand outstretched, her eyes glowing. “You killed my family. You killed my friends. You hurt them all.”  
“I have…” Brainiac swallowed. He had a terrible poker face. “I have hurt too many to remember specifics.”  
Click screamed, her glowing violet eyes intensifying. The color carried over to Brainiac’s eyes and the three glowing lights on his head, and he started screaming, too. All around us, the machinery started popping and smoking, the lights flashing and flickering, making noises they ain’t supposed to make.  
“You never accounted for this,” I said to him. I made sure my voice was audible over the growing noise, but only just. “You never thought emotions would play a key factor. And now that they do, your systems can’t handle it. They’re only designed for logic. There isn’t enough room in there for the humanity you’re feeling now.”  
Brainiac turned and stared at me. “I am… not human.”  
“Okay, dude. Fuck you, too.”  
He screamed one more time, and then his body fell limp.  
Click dropped her hand. “He’s gone…” she said. “He’s dead.”  
“And how do you feel?”  
She paused. “Better. I’m…” she paused. “Well, it seems I no longer connect a childish state with being happy. I think I’ve moved beyond that immaturity.”  
“Wait, what?”  
“I’m an empath,” she said. She tapped her head. “It’d be dumb if I didn’t know what was going on in my own head.”  
“I don’t know,” I said. “You’ve gone through some wild personality and mood swings in the past few hours. Are you sure you’re okay?”  
“Well, if it makes you feel any better, I still like you, and I still think you’re cute, and I’m fine with being as bubbly as I was before. The difference is, now I can be more mature about it.”  
I stared at her.  
“I can see you’re scared. And I know it looks freaky. But I’m okay. Really, I am.”  
“Then… you won’t mind if I have House check you out?”  
She shook her head. “That’s fine.”  
“Okay.” I was already dealing with an ancient prison for demons, two reforming demons, the daughter of gender-swapped Aquaman and Wonder Woman, and a Jekyl/Hyde Green Lantern. I didn’t need a crazy shapeshifter on my hands, as well.  
Speaking of things I don’t need on my plate, this ship.  
Glancing at the monitors told me the barriers around the city and the drones were deactivated. This means the ship was left in my hands, with all the technology, planets and cities that implied.  
It was a lot. All this knowledge, all this power… I could do so much with it. I could give everyone superpowers. Take them away. Quarantine the Earth away from prying eyes. Rule it. A lot of options were available, some good, some bad. It all depended on what I was going to do with this ship.  
I took a deep breath, and then let it out. I knew exactly what I was going to do with this ship. I didn’t like it, but I knew.  
“Click,” I said, “I need you to plug your ears. I’m going to contact someone.”  
She obliged.  
I still didn’t want her hearing, so I forced my vocal chords to go as high as they could get. I think he’d still hear it, but I’d like to make sure. “Clark Kent. I need to speak with you. Your real name is Kal-El. You’re from the planet Krypton, and you were adopted by J-”  
“I’m here,” I heard him say.  
I turned to face Superman for the second time today. “Hello,” I said. “I’ve brought you something.”  
“You’ve killed one of Brainiac’s drones.”  
“Nope. Brainiac himself. My friend confirmed it.”  
“Wow. Hi.” Click was staring at Superman with hero worship in her eyes. I couldn’t really blame her. I felt the same way, seeing the big guy the first time.  
“You killed him?” It wasn’t judgmental, and there was no threat in his voice. He just sounded so… disappointed. I almost turned around right there. “Do you know what this means?”  
“Yeah,” I said. My hands were shaking. I wasn’t sure if it was fear, anger or just sheer will, to not let him convince me. “It means you’ve got a ship full of technology and secrets, and hundreds of thousands of innocent individuals in here. It means you now have a defense against other aliens like Brainiac. And it means you now have the capability to release the city of Kandor.”  
He stared at me with his arms folded. “This changes things,” he said at last. “If I had been in Metropolis when the city was captured, perhaps it wouldn’t have ended this way.”  
Okay, that was that. I’m good, now. “And the people of Kandor would remain trapped, and you wouldn’t fulfill your promise for another thousand years. Now you have a chance to set things right. Click, let’s go.” We started walking away. “Keep the ship. I don’t want it.”  
“What are you going to do, now?”  
“The same thing I always do,” I said. “See ya.”  
I started to walk away.  
“What other secrets do you hold, Lee?” he asked quietly.  
I stopped. “A lot,” I said. “Too much, I think. I’d be a danger to whoever I came across.” I turned to face him. “I don’t expect you to like me. I don’t even expect you to trust me. But what I’m doing is necessary. I won’t let you keep releasing these villains over and over again to do evil again and again.”  
“And you are in judgement of them? What gives you the right?”  
“Nothing,” I said. “I’m just doing the right thing. Do you need anything else, or can I go?”  
“Be careful, Lee. This road could take a dark turn.”  
I sighed. “I know. Thanks for keeping an eye on me.” And then I left.

I approached the two women sitting on a pile of Brainiac’s drones. “Did we do it?” asked Zhanna. She was holding this really cool ax-trident thing.  
“Yep,” I said. “Ding-dong, the witch is dead. Thanks for the distraction, guys.”  
“No problem,” said Cain. “What now?”  
“Now?” I took a deep breath. “Now we move in.” I walked over to a random door. “House, would you be so kind?”  
‘Fine. Welcome back, by the way.’  
“Thanks.” I opened the door, and stepped into House’s library.  
It looked like House had turned on the lights. She was, as always, standing in the middle of the library and waiting for us. Her hood was down, and her red eyes watched us as we entered. “Welcome,” she said, “to you, Cain, Cyan Lantern. To you, Zhanna, wielder of Dented Ax. And welcome, Click.”  
“No title for me?” asked Click. She sounded disappointed.  
“You are yourself,” said House. “That is enough.” She turned her head to call behind her. “Michael! Sean! Come meet your new companions!”  
Michael showed up a moment later, with large, bat-like wings protruding from his back. Sean showed up, flipping a coin and wearing a green suit. He kinda reminded me of Loki, now that I get a look at him.  
Sean took a look at each of my new companions, and then flipped his coin. He saw the result, and frowned. “Well, no comments from me. I welcome you three lovely ladies aboard. Welcome to the House of Horrors.”  
“Cozy place,” said Zhanna. She had hefted her ax over her shoulders and was resting her arms on it. “Where’d you get it?”  
“I killed the previous owner,” I said.  
“You seem to do that a lot.”  
“What now?” asked Cain. “It’s not like we have anything else to do, nowhere else to go.”  
“I don’t know,” I said. “At least not yet. There’s a great deal more evil we can destroy, but in the meantime, we can rest, get used to our new surroundings. House has been making sure we can all get comfortably moved in, so make sure you do. When I have something for us to take care of, I’ll be sure to bring you all in. House, would you show them around?”  
“Very well. If you three will follow me, I’ll show you to your rooms.” ‘There’s something going on in your mind, Lee.’  
What do you mean? What’s going on?  
‘Your mind, when you first came to me, was shattered by the thought of what you did to those criminals. Guilt, shame, remorse, all feelings connected to your killings. Now… now, all you’re feeling is pride.’  
Put it simply.  
‘Simply put? You no longer care about those you’ve killed.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow hey look at that another chapter. Weirdly enough, I need to finish one story before I can move onto another. For now, this is the story my brain says I need to write, so there will be more frequent (if not THIS frequent) updates for you guys.


	11. Octagon

So, I was very gradually turning into a psychopath.  
Yay!  
For those of you interested in such things, psychopaths are created by environment, while sociopaths are born. They’re dysfunctional from birth. That’s not to say that both ‘paths can’t adjust and live in modern society, but there will always be something off about them. This just means I’m not really going to ever fit in to modern society again.  
I reiterate: yay!  
Well, the nightmares are still there, so I suppose I still have a few shreds of conscience left. The sudden flashbacks are new, especially where I find myself on Brainiac’s ship, staring at him as he died of fear. So, perhaps I’m not too far-gone just yet.  
I wish I could decide I didn’t care or stop having the nightmares. I either want to enjoy this or make it impersonal, and at the moment, I don’t know which I want. It’s something I’ll have to think about, but for now, I get the chance to explore the rooms House set aside for us.  
It’s awesome, what she did. There are forty or so rooms in this place, fourteen set aside as our own personal bedrooms and bathrooms. There are three kitchens that come stocked with food (somehow), and the rest of the rooms are basically rooms with interesting stuff in them.  
On my first round of the house, I found a TV room with a giant plasma screen and a conversation pit. Later, I found a gymnasium, and still later a boxing ring. The house is constantly shifting and changing, and some rooms aren’t even accessible by normal routes. One time, I turned from a hallway to find a trapeze over a tall pit rather than a regular staircase. When I managed to cross, I found a room full of sewing supplies and cookies. Things like that. You had maps occasionally, but they didn’t let you find the really cool stuff.  
Bottom line: mystery house.  
I was dying of happiness.  
I could have spent days on end, just finding hidden doors or smashing through cracked walls. House encouraged that kind of behavior. I once saw a floor that had been uprooted by Michael, to find him and Click sitting at an all-you-can-eat buffet. Both of them refused to specify how they had discovered it, and both looked several pounds heavier.  
The house was fascinating, and I could’ve gone on forever, but one thing was at the forefront of my mind. In comics, secrets were the worst thing to have. They ate you up inside, forced you to come forward with the truth at the worst possible moment. I didn’t want that, and that meant I had to tell everyone what was really going on.  
So, a week after I moved everyone in, I called a conference meeting.  
We were all sitting around a desk in a conference room you could only access if you found the secret passage behind the bookcase. There were crepes and pitchers of water with glasses. I don’t know what happens in conference rooms, so I stood up and looked at these weird people.  
The one-armed coin demon in the back corner closest to the scones. The alien eating a pitcher… I don’t think that’ll hurt her. There’s Zhanna, loath to be without her ax. She’s sharpening it currently. Cain is sitting in a chair with Star’s glowing form next to her, and Michael is sitting in his chair with his legs folded. He’s staring at me without blinking. House, of course, is always watching. That’s a topic for another day.  
“Thank you all for coming here today,” I started.  
“Not like we were doing anything useful,” said Sean.  
“We would come if you called,” said Michael.  
The ax stopped being sharpened for a moment. “Seriously?” asked Zhanna.  
Too far off-course. “I come from a world where this place is a comic book.”  
That got their attention. Sean flipped his coin and frowned. “What?” he asked.  
“Okay,” I said. “Here’s the story: I am from a world where the stories of THIS world are comics. Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, most of the superheroes have comics that completely lay out their lives for millions of people to see.”  
“Holy shit.” Cain was staring at me. “Is that why you knew so much about the Starheart?”  
“It is,” I said. “Green Lantern. The first one. He got his power from a meteorite, said to act three times. The first was to bring life, the second death, the third power. The first Green Lantern got the third.”  
“What about Aquawoman?” asked Zhanna.  
“He’s a man on this Earth. Raised by humans until he was an adult, and then took the throne of Atlantis.”  
“Zatanna?” asked Sean.  
“Her father was a true magician who hid his past. Zatanna became a stage magician who then discovered her true powers and then went looking for her father.”  
“Hell,” said Sean, “you really know your stuff.”  
I scoffed. “I was… AM a huge fan.”  
Michael nodded. “It makes sense, the way you know so many secrets. Why you killed the clown without hesitation.”  
“Correct,” I said. “I knew he would just kill again. He had to be stopped.”  
“What about his assistant?” asked Zhanna. “You let her live.”  
“She… she’s not completely evil. She could be better. The Joker was a toxic influence on her life.”  
“Why tell us now?” asked Click. “I mean, I could kinda tell you were hiding something, but this seems kinda small.”  
“Well…” I frowned. “It just seemed something you don’t tell, you know?”  
“That doesn’t make any sense,” said Cain. “We’re all a bit odd. Four of us here are from alternate worlds.”  
“Five,” chimed in Star.  
“Sorry. Five of us. It’s not an impossibility that some things from our previous lives would come back to help us this life. There were a few notable tax loopholes that were exploited in my world that hadn’t been closed here.”  
“Nothing as specific as what I know,” I said. “I guess… I have access to some of the darkest secrets of the fabric of reality. I know the secret identities of the entire Justice League. I know a Kryptonian’s weaknesses, the realms of the world, and how many colors of power rings there are.”  
“How many?” asked Click.  
“Seven,” I said. “Nine if you count white and black, ten if you count a ring that switches between colors. Point is, I know a lot of stuff here.”  
“Do you know the richest man’s bank account numbers?” asked Sean.  
“Where the most valuable buried treasure is?” asked Zhanna.  
“Not exactly,” I said. “Rather, I know several top-secret matters from the US government, among a few others, as well as secrets kept by ancient aliens and old gods.”  
“Gods?” asked Michael. “They are definitely real?”  
“Every god is real, as far as I know. Some are viler than the stories tell (Anubis and Ares, for two) but most are fine, if sometimes jerks. However, I do know there is a God, uppercase-g.”  
“The real deal?” Star asked. “The one above all?”  
“That’s the Marvel universe. No, I mean the Presence. The God. Biggest of the deities. Spectre, his physical manifestation of wrath, is the one who brought me over.”  
“I hate that guy,” said Sean. “You can’t go a bloody day without ‘you have committed great sins’ or some crap like that.”  
“He’s an asshole, I’ll give you that. I also know the name of the wizard on the Rock of Eternity.”  
That got their attention. “What.” Zhanna said it with a flat, emotionless voice, but the way her sharpening stone snapped in half she was incredibly tense.  
“Not many people know that name,” said Michael. “Can you recite it?”  
I opened my mouth, and then shut it. “I don’t think I will. I don’t want that kind of power nor do I want his attention. You’ll just have to take my word on that one.”  
“I can see why you were nervous, now,” said Sean. “That kinda secret would go for big bucks. I think someone might even be willing to kill for it.”  
“Hence this meeting,” I said. “I need you all to know that I know the names and secrets of the biggest players in this universe, but two things we must remember: I know the secrets of the BIGGEST players. Any actions I take using that knowledge would have global, catastrophic consequences.”  
“That’s a bit overblown, isn’t it?” Star said.  
“Top-secret government testing, the secret identities of the greatest superheroes, and how to duplicate the origins of almost every supervillain?”  
“Withdrawn.”  
“Second, not all of my information may be accurate.”  
For the second time, they were stunned, though this time with less fear and more disbelief. “What?” asked Sean. “Then how d’we know it’s accurate?”  
“Well, let me put it this way: the heroes on my world were constantly getting reinvented. There were imaginings and reimaginings out the wazoo, and more parallel worlds than you could shake infinite sticks at. However, each one had broad strokes that were roughly the same. Superman is always jettisoned from Krypton and comes to Earth to grow up here. Captain Marvel always gets the name from the wizard. Amanda Waller is NEVER to be trusted. Some things may be different, but certain key factors will be the same.”  
“I get it,” said Cain. “On my Earth, we had different presidents after James Madison, but we still had a Civil War, two world wars and a large bomb, though ours was hydrogen rather than atomic.”  
“Exactly. You’d still be able to scope out the differences.” I cracked my knuckles nervously. “However… there has been a minor – possibly major – hiccup.”  
“Something huge is missing?” Sean asked.  
“Specifically, a group of superheroes from the distant future, the Legion of Superheroes of the 31st century. Ordinarily, they come back in time to recruit Superman as a boy, and they have lots of amazing adventures together. Even if Superman is a grown man, he should still remember them. However, he didn’t have any memory of them.”  
“Maybe he was hiding them from you,” said Zhanna.  
“I don’t think so,” I said. “Because a whole superhero related to the Legion is just gone. Booster Gold doesn’t exist.”  
“Booster Gold?” asked Star. “Never heard of him.”  
“That’s because, from what I know of him, he’s a time traveler from the future. He takes a special flight device from the Legion and comes back in time with advanced tech to become a superhero. He doesn’t exist. It’s like the Legion doesn’t exist either.”  
“Which means something changed,” said Click. She was rolling a scone along the table. “Something’s different.”  
“And the only thing you can think of right now is yourself?” asked Cain.  
I nodded. “It might be a different divergent point, but I don’t know enough of THIS world to give a good answer.”  
Michael cracked his knuckles without looking away from me. “You’re saying we need to find more divergencies in this world for you to know?”  
“Not necessarily, although it would help me figure out what’s going on. I just…” I sighed. “We have to keep going. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of evil people who will stop at nothing to achieve what they want. We have to stop them. We have to end the cycle of violence.”  
“By creating more violence?” asked Michael. “Will that really end it?”  
“Michael?” asked Zhanna. “Are you okay?”  
“Please, let me finish. You say you want to stop violence right after you talk about murdering people. I spent decades slaughtering. I will not be brought back to that life, not without good reason. Why do you think we have to?”  
“Because they aren’t doing a good job of it.” I clenched my fists. “Heroes, I mean. All of them claim they want to save lives, and then save lives like the Joker’s. They’ve killed more people with mercy than saved by it.”  
“Why hasn’t it changed?” asked Cain. “In your world, why haven’t the writers changed the patterns?”  
“It works fine for a comic,” I replied. “You save the villain, and he comes back later, stronger than before and looking for revenge. It allows you to keep reusing iconic villains. It never really mattered, because… because nobody in the comics was real.” I frowned. “I can’t take that logic, now. I don’t know what kind of life I’ll be living, but I know what feels real, and that is this place. Those are real people the Joker killed, and he got to live. It wasn’t fair.”  
“Life ain’t fair, mate,” said Sean. “What makes you think we should do this?”  
“Life isn’t fair, but that doesn’t mean it has to be. It only makes sense when you force it.” I leaned onto the table. “And we are going to force it.”  
“So, what?” asked Zhanna. She was inspecting her ax. “We’re a team of superheroes?”  
“No,” said Michael. “Heroes save people. We are closer to assassins.”  
“Vigilantes,” I said. “That’s what we are. Make no mistake, we are going to kill and capture, and that will be our mission. If anyone wants out of that, I won’t stop you.”  
The six of them looked at each other briefly. “Would you mind stepping outside?” asked Cain.

I stood outside, pacing the hallway. House was there.  
“Are you worried they’ll leave you?” she asked me.  
“A little,” I replied. “If I really want them onboard, they have to have the choice to leave.”  
“Well, you don’t need to worry about me. I’m with you to the end.”  
I smirked. “Thanks, House.”  
“You shouldn’t thank me. I’m stuck with you.” She frowned at me. “Is this another thing humans do?”  
“It is.”  
She stared at me. “Do you want to listen in? I can tell you what they’re saying.”  
“Yes, that…” I stopped myself. “No, I don’t think I should.”  
“It is your house. You should know what is discussed.”  
“This is another human thing, House: privacy.”  
“I don’t like it. They could be scheming to kill us.”  
“We’ll be fine.”  
“You’ll be fine.” She seemed to sulk as she said it.  
I sighed. “Look, if you want to listen in, that’s fine. Just don’t tell me what’s going on.”  
***  
“This is dumb,” said Zhanna. “Are we really considering this?”  
“Seems reasonable enough,” said Sean. “The guy has knowledge of our world. We can do some good with that.”  
“And for what?”  
“For the fabulous wealth they sit on, of course.”  
“Not for the people we could save?” asked Cain. “Not that I’m fully onboard with it, but it seems like it’d be a more humanitarian effort.”  
“I don’t understand English well,” said Michael, “but I don’t think that’s the right use of the word ‘humanitarian’.”  
“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few,” said Cain. “We kill a few to save more.”  
“But we become like them in the process. We can’t just go around killing people.”  
“Why not?” asked Sean. “If they’re assholes, then A: nobody cares if we kill them, and B: we can take their stuff.”  
“And we fight really, really dangerous people!” said Zhanna. “We went up against BRAINIAC, for Hera’s sake! Do we really want to be put in those situations?!”  
“What else can he throw at us?” asked Sean. “Not much higher to go from there.”  
“The Lantern Corp,” said Cain. “Star and I don’t want to get mixed up with them. They’ll…STUDY us.”  
“Probably won’t even pay you for it,” said Zhanna. “But isn’t that an opportunity for you?”  
“Don’t mind her,” said Star. “She’s just playing devil’s advocate. She’s really onboard with this.”  
“Don’t just tell them that!” said Cain.  
“You would do that?” asked Michael. “They would die and you would be killing them.”  
“It’s not like it’s murder,” said Cain. “They’re killers. You can kill killers and it’s fine.”  
“No matter how you justify it, it’s still murder.”  
“What would you do, then? Let them walk away, to hurt someone else?”  
“Could we be the judges? I am a killer myself, and I wouldn’t trust myself to have the necessary restraint.”  
“Then you know what it looks like! You would be the BEST to judge them!”  
“Why’re you guys arguing?” asked Click. She was stuffing a bagel into her face and distorting her cheeks to get it to fit. “The guy’s got his heart in the right place. He was really nervous when he was talking to us about this whole ‘comic world’ thing, and he’s being earnest about all this. Plus, I can sense him now: he’s really scared we’re going to leave him alone.”  
Silence.  
“He what?” asked Michael.  
“He’s scared. You remember what it was like, right? Coming to this world, alone, with no one to talk to? None of us killed someone so soon after we came. He’s been carrying that burden on his own for a while. If we leave him to do this alone, he’ll fall…” Click’s eyes seemed more distant than usual. “He’s walking a thin line between vigilante and villain. Whether or not he loses his place depends on the support he has.”  
“And we’re to be his emotional crutch?” asked Zhanna.  
“What else were you going to do with your life?”  
The room was quiet again. Everyone was looking away. No one wanted to make eye-contact. Each of them struggled with thoughts they didn’t care to vocalize, until at last, Michael sighed.  
“Alright,” he said, “but I am not here to fight. I am here to make sure nobody innocent is hurt.”  
Zhanna shook her head. “You must be crazy. I must be crazy. Fine, I’ll stick around. This better be worth my while, though.”  
Cain nodded. “Sean, you were onboard with this?”  
“Sure. We’re going to be rich!”  
“Maybe.” Cain stood and walked to the door. “Lee? You can come in now.”  
***  
I walked back into the board meeting room. “What is your decision?” I asked.  
Cain took a deep breath. “After some deliberation, we have agreed that it would be best if we stuck around. Some of us have some objections to the methods, and we will need to decide what our roles our, but I believe that we can work on this together.”  
I couldn’t stop myself. I grinned. “Alright. Great. Okay. Um… well, cool. We should hammer out the details. I also don’t have any mission we can work on right now. I just wanted to get this out into the open.” I sniffed. “Any questions?”  
Michael raised his hand. “I would prefer if I was not involved in the fighting. I don’t want to become a warrior again.”  
“Yeah,” said Sean, “and can I take stuff from the bad guys?”  
“He does NOT get full privileges!” said Zhanna. “If he gets stuff, I get stuff, too!”  
I raised my hands for silence. “Michael, you don’t have to fight. We’ll find something else for you to do. Sean, Zhanna, if it’s not dangerous I don’t care what you do with it.”  
“Fantastic!” said Sean. “Well, meeting adjourned. What’re we gonna call ourselves?”  
“Do we need a name?” I asked. “I named myself ‘Lee’ after all. I’m not good with naming stuff.”  
“Well, there’s eight of us here,” said Cain. “Me, Star, Michael, Sean, you, Click and House. What if we called ourselves the eight somethings?”  
“That’s a terrible name,” said Sean. “Doesn’t stick in the memory at all.”  
“What about octopus?” said Click. “Like, the squishy things.”  
“Too much like Hydra,” I said. “I’d rather not be named like a supervillain organization.”  
“What about Octagon?” asked Zhanna. “Simple and sleek. Like the Google logo.”  
“We don’t have an octagon on any of us,” said Star.  
House appeared at that moment and stepped right up to Star. “I could change that,” she said. “I control everything in this House.” She had this crazy gleam in her eyes, like I’d seen on my friends when they were challenged in something they really enjoyed doing.  
Star swallowed. I didn’t know she got nervous like that. “No, it’s fine,” she said in a small voice.  
“Perfect.” House smiled wider. “You are all now Octagon. We will spend our days killing the worst and imprisoning demons.”  
“Demons?” asked Zhanna. She brandished her ax. “Where?”  
“Michael and Sean,” I replied. “Both demons.”  
She stared at them. Her mouth stretched into a thin line.  
“This should be fun,” I said. “Who’s up for some celebratory ice cream?”

And that was the start of our adventures as Octagon. My whole origin story, told in eleven chapters. I guess this whole world-traveling could be good for me. And who knows? Maybe I’ll even find someone who doesn’t mind that I look like a potato in comparison to this super-model world.  
Yes, it looks like things are really looking up for me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What? Foreshadowing? Nonsense. I don't foreshadow. Nothing bad could possibly happen in the future.


	12. The Hatter and the Crocodile

I awoke from more nightmares. This time, I was ripping out hearts and cooking them on a barbecue. I’m not a psychiatrist, and I can’t rightly say what they mean, but when I woke up I had a hankering for burgers, so I ate three apples to avoid thinking about that.  
It was the middle of the night, around one in the morning, and everyone else was asleep. Except Michael, I think: I’m not sure if he sleeps. I found him, once, hanging upside-down from the ceiling by his bare feet. He was just staring at the wall. He didn’t notice me quietly leaving the room to avoid looking at him anymore.  
On this particular night, I woke up and walked through the House with my thoughts on the future. I had no idea what our next move was. Sure, we should probably go after some bad guys, but I wasn’t going to invade a prison, where most of them were kept. That would get the guards involved, and I didn’t want innocent blood on my hands. That meant waiting for something to happen, and for that…  
“House?” I called.  
She showed up right next to me. Just appeared there like a goshdarned phantom. “You rang?” she asked with a smirk.  
“Holee jeezuss!” I said. “Don’t just… you know what? Fine. Can you connect to police scanners?”  
“How? I haven’t the power for it.”  
“You said you can manipulate anything in this space, right?”  
“Of course.”  
“Just create some police scanners, and tune in.”  
She tilted her head. “Okay.” An instant later, several dozen police scanners popped into existence around her. They were buzzing with static, but she seemed to be listening intently. “There are many more signals than you would normally expect for police scanners.”  
“What do you mean?”  
“Let me rephrase. There are more signals than YOU would expect, from your reference point of your world. There are seventy-five different signals sending information at various levels of encryption via the air waves. It will take some time to decode them all, but a few of them are readily available for you to peruse. However, I doubt your feeble mind could take it.”  
I was mildly insulted. “Thank you for taking over it, then. Do you want to go to sleep, now?”  
“I don’t sleep. I find watching you five sleep fascinating.”  
“Five…?”  
“Star and Michael do not sleep. Sean, yourself and Click do not need sleep, but like to do so. Only Zhanna and Cain require rest.”  
“What an interesting fact I’m going to go over here now.”  
“What about Killer Croc?”  
“What about K- has he escaped?”  
“Yes, just recently. He faked a seizure and escaped through the nurse’s office.”  
“That’s pretty clever of him.” I frowned. “You know, this may be a good opportunity.”  
“For what?”  
“If we’re going to be a team, we need to mobilize. There are a lot of bad guys out there to kill. Which means we need to get teams to handle these threats.”  
“How large?”  
“Teams of two, at least.”  
“Do we count Star as a person?”  
“I think so, but we’ll hold off on pairing her up with someone else until she has a physical body. For now, I think we need heavy-hitters. We should send Michael and Zhanna to deal with Croc.”  
“Hm… Zhanna does have the strength of an Amazonian skewed in the direction of an Atlantean, and she has shown combat proficiency, but Michael? What makes you think he would be willing to fight?”  
“I don’t want him to fight.” I took a deep breath. “Killer Croc is the product of his environment. He wouldn’t have ended up like he has were it not for the horrible people who hurt him his entire life. I want to give him a chance to turn away from this path, but if he doesn’t, I need someone to put him down. Hard.”  
“And you could not?”  
“Granted I have k-” I had a brief flash of Black Mask as he died “… ended the lives of very powerful people, but that was, at worst, lucky. At the best, I couldn’t even repeat the feat. I’ll need to pick up some extra powers along the way, of course, but for now, I specialize what I have.”  
“Good enough. You could have just thought that to me.”  
“Oh… right. Should we-”  
“What is going on?”  
I nearly leaped out of my skin. I found Michael standing behind me (RIGHT BEHIND ME) and staring between the two of us.  
“You two seem concerned,” he said. “Is everything well with you?”  
“You’re going to go on a mission to stop a villain,” said House.  
Michael frowned at me. “Lee, I appreciate all your help, but I will not hurt anyone else.”  
“I know. I appreciate that about you. However, this isn’t about killing Croc, it’s about STOPPING him.”  
“You…” Michael tilted his head. “You wish me to speak with him. Convince him to change his ways.”  
“Correct. Croc… Waylon Jones is a victim. He has been almost all his life. He’s gone through and done a whole lot of terrible things, but he’s still an emotionally damaged child. I want him to have one more chance at life.”  
“And if he says no?”  
“That’s why Zhanna’s coming with you.”  
“Izzwhat?” said a sleepy voice. Michael and I turned to see Zhanna padding in wearing fuzzy teddy bear pajamas and carrying her ax. “What’s going on?”  
“We have a mission,” said Michael. “We are going after a criminal.”  
“Oh, fantastic. It couldn’t’ve waited until tomorrow?”  
“It is three-fifteen am,” said House. “It is tomorrow.”  
“I don’t need your bullshit,” said Zhanna. “I have an ax.”  
“I control the room around you. Shut up and pay attention.”  
Zhanna grumbled. “Fine. What’s the situation?”

After bringing the two of them up to speed, I had House link into their minds so we could be in communication, and then we warped to Gotham city, at an old warehouse door, to deposit them.  
As they were leaving, I said “Remember! Batman’s probably already on the case. You need to stay one step ahead of him if you want to catch Croc.”  
Zhanna grinned. “How hard can it be? He’s just a guy in a suit.”  
“He’s on the Justice League, and is considered on the same level as Superman and Wonder Woman. Do not underestimate him.”  
“Yeah, sure.” The door shut behind them.  
“Is that going to bite them in the ass?” asked House.  
“If Batman’s involved. It’s honestly up in the air if he is or not.”  
“Should I be worried about Batman?”  
“Most definitely. I’ll walk you through what makes Batman so determined, but for now, one thing at a time. We need to keep tabs on those two.”  
***  
The crocodile liked the sewers, so they would have to travel through them to find him. Michael was unenthused by this proposition, and his partner, Zhanna, was equally unenthused.  
“A fucking sewer.” She said this in what Michael understood was a flat tone. If he understood the idiom, it meant Zhanna’s tone had passed below into the second dimensions. “We’re his first mission, and we have to go into a sewer.”  
Michael said nothing. He found that uselessly flapping his mouth didn’t usually help when it came to complaints. Let her do this, and it would pass. For now, he had to walk to the docks, where the sewer was located. He tilted his head to listen for the sound of running water, and followed that sound to a river, probably the Gotham River, if naming conventions followed.  
“I mean, it’s not like he’s going in the sewer. No, he’s back at House, with House, inside… fuck, there is some shit in that symbolism I don’t want to deal with. Do you think it’s Freudian?”  
“I don’t want to consider it. We need to get to the sewers.”  
“Well, there’s an access port over there.”  
Michael turned in the direction Zhanna had indicated, and then glanced back at her. “How did you do that?”  
“I’m half-Atlantean. I can at least sense where water is, and this water is heavily contaminated. Can you help me with this grate?”  
“One moment… there, the metal is bent.”  
“I meant to remove it, but completely shredding it is fine, too. Let’s go. You first?”  
“That is fine. Would you please lower me down?”  
“Here you go… oh, that sounded nasty. How’s the water? How roomy is it down there?”  
“The water is terrible, but there is a great deal of space downer her. At lest two feet about my horns, and twice the height in width.”  
“Fantastic. Coming down.”  
Zhanna dropped into the hole and drew her ax. “There’s something else down here, too. You smell that?”  
“Something living, yes. And fresh meat.”  
“How do you know that smell?”  
Blood and fire and death, children screaming, pain and fear and hunger, and meat, fresh meat, red and raw, torn from a corpse so-  
“I have… issues,” said Michael. “Please don’t ask again.”  
“Well, fine.”  
The two of them walked in silence, the stench of meat and living flesh growing stronger. Michael felt like he was choking, the stench bringing back memories he would rather forget. He had to get Zhanna away from him. Somehow, some way, just get her out. Gone.  
“We should split up,” said Michael. “See if we can find the crocodile separately. If you find him first, contact me and I’ll join you. If I find him, I’ll try to talk him down.”  
“Talk him down? What will that do?”  
“Maybe he’ll surrender. Maybe he wants to change.”  
“You don’t know that. He’s a cannibalistic freak.”  
“I am as much a freak as him,” said Michael, glaring with all he was worth, “so hold your tongue.”  
She glared back. “Fine. Let’s split up. I’ll go this way.” She turned down a side path, and started walking.  
Michael watched her go, and then started walking. He didn’t need to tell Zhanna he had figured out where Croc was. He didn’t have to.  
It took a few more twists and turns to get where he needed to go, but soon Michael found himself in a large, open area, where water was coming in from three tubes and going out three more tubes. Sitting in the middle was a large man with green, scaly skin, wearing blood-stained jeans and holding an arm. Not one of his arms, but an arm detached from one of the three bodies that were bleeding out on the soaked floor.  
The man grunted. “So, you found me. You here to take me back to prison?” Killer Croc tore off another chunk of meat from the arm, and started chewing it. “Or maybe the asylum. Maybe they’ll have something better for…” he stopped talking when he got a good look at Michael. “I see. Freak, too.”  
“I am, I suppose.” Michael took a few steps forward. Croc assumed a defensive pose, so Michael raised his hands slowly. “I am not here to fight. I just want to talk.”  
“You sure? Are you sure you don’t have some kind of… demon power that you’re using on me?”  
“I have great strength, this is true, and I am very fast and can fly with the use of wings that are currently hidden. I am not here-”  
“What else can you do?”  
“Manipulate fire, comprehend every language and create sparks by striking metal on my horns.”  
“Sparks?”  
“You need a source of fire to manipulate it.”  
“So… you aren’t in my head?”  
“If I was, I already would be. I would say the same things I’m saying now. Please believe me, I just want to talk.”  
Croc stared at Michael, and then, slowly, lowered his hands. “What are you here for? Looking to start a gang?”  
“I want to help you.”  
“The last time someone said that, they turned me into more of a monster than I already was. The time before that, I got my teeth filed into points. And the time before that, I got beat with a belt. I suppose you’ll just have to trust that I don’t exactly like that phrase.”  
“I hope you’ll believe me. Do you know of the man who killed the Joker?”  
“Yeah. I drank to his health the night I heard the news.”  
“He has sent me. We’re trying to make the world a better place. To do that, we need to kill some supervillains… and some, we need to save.”  
“Save?” Croc dropped his meal to fold his arms. “And what do you mean by ‘save’?”  
“You were a victim,” said Michael. “Born human yet ostracized because of your skin condition. Beaten and hurt by everyone who should have given you love. You’ve been outcast and downtrodden for far too long.”  
“So that’s it? Offer me pity because I had a rough childhood?”  
“I offer you something more. I live in a place that can help you. Repair the damaged skin, rebuild your fractured mind. You could live out there.”  
Croc didn’t say anything. His expression had gone blank, almost too quickly.  
“You wouldn’t have to hide in the shadows. We could help you. I want to help you. Please, believe me. I’m offering you a chance, the last chance I can offer, to come back.”  
Croc stared at Michael, and then at the three corpses beneath his feet. “Do you really think I can?”  
“I have been where you are.” Michael took a step towards Croc. The alligator man didn’t back away. “It is never too late to come back. You are better than you think you are.”  
Waylon Jones stared at the floor, and then looked back into Michael’s eyes with a strength that hadn’t been there before. “I want to. By god, I really want to. But they can’t fix me. The modifications that have been installed in me, they’re breaking my mind. Making me eat human flesh. I can barely control myself now to have this conversation. And someone, recently, altered me even further.” Croc turned to reveal a blinking set of lights on the back of his neck, a metal plate little better than stapled to his nape. “I don’t have long before it wipes my mind. They broke me out to turn me into their mindless slave. I can’t say their name or even their gender, or else I’d tell you so you could get the bastard.” He turned back to face Michael, a few shreds of intelligence missing from his eyes. “But… from one brother to another… thank you. I wanted to spend my last hour of intelligence as myself, and…” Croc stopped, and Michael noticed there were tears in his eyes.  
Croc grinned. “…it was nice to finally meet someone who treated me like I was human. Goodbye.” And then, with a zap, the last hint of intelligence in his eyes vanished. He roared and leaped at Michael.  
An ax head pierced through his chest, and then ripped out the side before decapitating Croc in one smooth motion. With a splash, his body fell to the ground, and Zhanna wiped off her weapon with Croc’s jeans.  
“How much did you hear?” asked Michael.  
“The whole thing. I was following you after we ‘split up’.” She slung her polearm on her back. “You okay?”  
“…no.” Michael glanced down to see blood had splattered his shirt. “Someone was controlling him. We need to find out who.” Michael leaned down next to Waylon’s body, and examined the plating. He ripped the panel off and examined the back of it. There were wires and cables that were wet and gloppy after being pulled out of Waylon’s neck, but a diagram stood out to Michael. A top hat, with a white slip of paper on it with a “10” inscribed in large-print letters.  
“What’s this symbol?” asked Michael. “Do you know it?”  
Zhanna stared at the plate and frowned. “Hm… I don’t think so. It looks familiar.” ‘Hey, Lee? I’m sending you a mental picture of a plate we found controlling Killer Croc. Do you know the symbol?’  
‘I’ve got it… oh, shoot. Yep. Mad Hatter. Jervis Tetch. One of Batman’s weirdest villains, sometimes a thief, sometimes a kidnapper. He usually has schemes straight out of Lewis Carroll’s books, so a brief reading of the books wouldn’t be averse, if you have time.’  
“Off with their heads!”  
Michael and Zhanna both stood at attention, Zhanna drawing her sword in a flash.  
‘Hey, you two okay? You stopped thinking for a second there.’  
‘Someone just screamed “Of with their heads”,’ Michael replied.  
‘Oh, dear. You might want to find Mad Hatter and end this, quick. Batman’s probably already on his way to the source. Careful. Mad Hatter may look like a grumpy midget, but he’s tenacious and far better at mind games than you know. Keep on your toes: he also occasionally hypnotizes innocents, so if he has goons, they’re likely not in their right minds.’  
‘On it. Out.’  
“What do we do?” asked Zhanna. “Do you have a plan?”  
Michael frowned. “I have no idea.” He looked up at the grating on the ceiling. “We must get out of here, first.”

The grating proved as much of a match for Michael as the first one, and soon he and Zhanna were out in the open. The streets were abandoned at this time of night, for the most part, and the chilly wintry air made goose flesh on Michael’s arms.  
A police car screamed by with its sirens on. Then a second, then a third.  
Michael raised his eyebrows. “I think we should follow them. Can you fly?”  
“No. I can jump pretty good, though.”  
“Then tell me if you can’t keep up.” Michael spread his wings, and leaped into the air. A second later, Zhanna followed him, leaping from ledge to ledge.  
Michael and Zhanna followed the squad cars through several twists and turns. The path took them downtown and then into the pearl district, all angled roughly towards what was probably the Gotham Bell Tower. Michael and Zhanna landed just outside a police blockade to watch the proceedings.  
The bell tower had a large, neon sign hanging both above and below the face of the clock. The one below was of a sleeping mouse in a teacup, the one above a wacky-looking rabbit with a teacup half-full of tea, in that the teacup was cut vertically and the rabbit was holding half of it. The signs were blinking sporadically, and it made Michael’s head hurt.  
“What’s up with those lights?” asked Zhanna.  
‘Probably hypnotism,’ Lee interjected. ‘Hatter’s good at that. Check for civilians: they might need their eyes covered or averted.’  
Michael glanced around. The police officers who were arriving were wearing dark shades, despite the hour of the night. They were moving around just fine, no signs of lack of alertness or hypnotism. Glancing to the tower nearby, there appeared to be a large crowd of people who were all staring at the blinking lights, all standing stock still with their mouths agape.  
‘I see some of them,’ said Michael. ‘Should I get the city guard involved?’  
‘City…? Oh, the police. Yes, please do so.’  
‘How are we immune?’ asked Zhanna. ‘We see the lights and are unprotected, yet neither Michael nor I am a drooling mess.’  
‘Meh. Different physiology, probably.’  
‘That’s the best you can do?’  
‘That’s the usual explanation.’  
Michael ignored the ensuing argument and walked over to the crowd. One of them, a middle-aged man with a balding scalp, was the closest. Michael grabbed him by the shoulders and turned him until he was facing away from the lights.  
After a few moments, the man blinked and turned to Michael. “What ha…” he glanced up in shock at Michael’s horns.  
“Do not be afraid,” said Michael. “You were hypnotized, but now you are free. Don’t face the lights and get out of here.”  
“Oh… okay.”  
Michael turned and faced the police officers who were walking towards him. “These citizens can be freed if they are turned from the light,” he said. “I suspect the glasses protect you?”  
“They do.” One of the officers, one with a mustache, jerked his thumb at Zhanna. “She’s been talking to herself. She with you?”  
“She is.”  
“Make sure she doesn’t hurt anyone.”  
“Nobody that deserves better shall be harmed. You have my word.”  
“Sure, sure. You going to take care of Hatter?”  
“Yes.” Michael had never felt so sure of anything in his life. “Zhanna, we must go.”  
Zhanna made (presumably) one last cutting remark to Lee before walking over and pulling out her ax. “We doing this?”  
“Yes. We will need to get inside this building and find Hatter. You take care of him, and I will disable his machinery.”  
“Sounds good.”  
The two of them stalked into the bell tower, the sounds of the city fading behind them. Inside, a large auditorium, an open space with few pieces of furniture. A set of stairs led higher up into the tower, and from above drifted the sounds of laughter and “No room! No room!”.  
“He’s up there,” said Zhanna. “I’ll go get him.” She stalked up the stairs, but before she left, a wave of pure anger hit Michael.  
It was neither physical nor magical, but a wave through the psychic link they shared to House. Somehow, Zhanna was pissed off.  
“Hold,” said Michael. “Zhanna, you are not well.”  
“I’m fine,” she said. “I’m going to take care of Hatter.”  
“But what is this anger you carry? What is it that drives you so?”  
She stood quietly, her ax gripped with tight knuckles. “Maybe I’ll tell you,” she replied, “when this is all over.” Then she began sprinting up the steps. Michael admired her stamina.  
He turned to follow her, but a spark of metal on the ground caused him to take a step back. Curious. A black piece of steel, in the shape of a bat. Could that be…?  
“What are you two doing here?” came a voice from the shadows.  
Michael turned in that voice’s direction, but a flurry of movement showed the figure already dashing away. “Batman, I presume?” he asked.  
“Mad Hatter is my concern. You and whoever you work for have no interest in this.”  
“I think we have a vetted interest in this,” said Michael. “He prevented the redemption of an honest man.”  
“Killer Croc. Waylon Jones. A mental-disruptor was attached to his spine.”  
“So you knew about it,” said Michael, “and did nothing.”  
“I only learned of it just now. If I could have stopped him, I would.”  
Michael peered through the shadows. Whoever this Batman was, he was good. Most humans didn’t have the fine control over their bodies to move with such stealth, to remain as a shadow when they were solid. Batman was a work of art, but he was used to humans.  
Michael reached out and snatched up Batman’s cape in an instant. It detached, and he felt a shock run through it, but whatever voltage ran through the cape clearly was meant for humans.  
“You are shaming yourself,” said Michael. “I have heard of you. Lee speaks of you with high praise, but I cannot think of you as anything but a coward. You have let innocents die because you cannot cross an imaginary line. You claim to follow rules, but the only rules you choose to follow are your own.”  
“And you follow a killer’s?”  
There. Michael reached out again, and this time felt the neck of a man. A strong man, but a man, nonetheless. He pulled him into the light, and did not see a bat face, but merely a human face in a cowl.  
“That killer,” Michael said, careful to hold Batman with enough strength to keep him still, but not enough to hurt him, “was the first to help me. I spent thousands of years in a prison, a prisoner in my own mind. He sent me to help Waylon Jones. How many times would you capture him before you realized he needed help?” Michael threw Batman across the room. The smashing into the wall told him it hurt, but Michael heard no breaking of bones.  
“I was trying,” said Batman. “He wouldn’t listen.”  
“Then you weren’t trying hard enough!” Michael roared. He felt his teeth slide into place, the fangs jutting out. His eyes burned, and he saw red light being cast on the Batman. He forced himself to stand still, reigning in his temper. “I have heard stories,” said Michael. “You defeated Superman.”  
“I had time planning,” said Batman, standing up. He assumed a fighting position. He was favoring his left side.  
“You did nothing for those in your care,” said Michael. “I have heard you are the smartest man in the world, yet how much time have you spent planning their care? A single lab, to heal Mrs. Frieze? An overworked asylum to house all your criminals at once? And a single man, to control them all.”  
Batman threw a punch. It was fast, and Michael barely moved out of the way in time. “What would you have me do?” Batman demanded.  
“Better! You brought a man who can move planets to his knees! You hold the greatest secrets on Earth! You, a mortal, are capable of demanding respect from gods! You! Can do! Better!”  
They stood in silence, staring at one another. The Batman was tense in every muscle, and Michael felt his horns burning. He was going to lose control.  
“Your parents would be ashamed of you,” he said.  
Batman stiffened, even more than he already was.  
“Thomas understood the difficulties of building something, yet he spent his life doing it. You have done nothing. Martha understood to be kind. You are a hammer. You are hard, and cold, and have built so little that will last. If you cannot build a better future, I will put it in someone else’s hands.” Michael’s horns diffused, his teeth shrank back, and his eyes stopped glowing. “Leave us to our business.”  
“It’s none of your business. Gotham is my territory.”  
‘I’m done here, Michael.’  
The thought came from Zhanna. ‘Alright. Come down and join us.’ “Hatter is dead,” said Michael. “Our work is done.”  
Batman moved so fast, Michael couldn’t see what was going on before something like ten pounds of bricks hit him in the jaw. He reeled back, dazed, and raised his arms to defend himself. Batman was in a boxing stance, bouncing from foot to foot. It was as tightly controlled as he was, and impressive in its implied lethality.  
“I will not fight you,” said Michael.  
“Then surrender.”  
Michael took that moment to glance behind him. The entrance was open. Perhaps he could escape before Batman had a chance to reach him.  
Michael opened his wings, and flapped them towards Batman. The rush of air knocked him back, soaring in the direction of the open door.  
A sharp bite of pain came from his wing. He flopped down near the door and saw the black metal bat in one of his wings.  
It hurt.  
It was like getting your fingers impaled, or having someone rip off your fingernails. Michael choked back a scream.  
Batman was standing over him. Michael could finally understood the fear in the criminals Lee spoke of. This man was terrifying, so stone-cold in his ability, yet surgical in the way he avoided any permanent nerve damage.  
Batman crouched next to Michael and held up another black metal bat – a batarang. Michael hated the way he stiffened in fear at the sight of it. “Stay out of Gotham,” said Batman, “and don’t come back. If you do, I will not be as kind.” He put away his batarang, put on his cape, and walked out of the bell tower.  
Michael collapsed his head to the concrete, and then reached to the batarang in his wing. It hurt, but if he pulled it out quickly enough it shouldn’t HOLY HELL. Michael roared in pain, and felt his teeth go sharp. That hurt… that…  
He dropped the batarang. Focus. Calm down. Not in danger. Don’t need to lose control. Don’t…  
“Michael? What’s wrong?”  
Zhanna. Wasn’t safe. “Zhanna, you have to leave.” Oh god I don’t want to hurt her.  
“Hurt me? What are you talking about?”  
Still connected psychically. She could hear what he was thinking. Berserk. I can’t control myself. Have to stay back. Please. I don’t want to hurt you.  
Zhanna stared at him. Didn’t she know she was in danger! She had to leave, not come closer! What was-  
She had placed her forehead against Michael’s and started humming.  
It was a simple thing, a child’s song. Something about a rabbit on a green hill. Michael knew of it. However, there was a kind of warmth of emotion that came through their psychic link, memories of happier times and good memories. He caught flashes of a woman in orange-scaled clothing, a man with a lasso, a warm fireplace and something sweet. Hot chocolate, probably. He found himself lost in these impressions, and by the time the song was finished, his teeth had returned to normal, and he was in control of himself.  
Zhanna smiled at him, and then stood straight. “Feeling better?”  
“…yes. What was that?”  
“I’ll tell you later.” ‘Lee, we’re done here.’  
‘Fantastic. There should be a door opening to your left.’

The fight with the Mad Hatter had been anticlimactic. Zhanna, apparently, found him having tea with a young girl with blonde hair whom he’d tied up. Zhanna made sure the girl wasn’t watching before she tore Hatter to shreds.  
Lee nodded. “Good work,” he said. “That’s two in one night. Take a break, guys, you’ve earned it.”  
Michael nodded, but said nothing. His head was full of thoughts from the day. Waylon Jones may have been a murderer, but Michael was just as bad as he was, and yet he was given a second chance. He couldn’t save him Croc, and it was because the choice was never his to begin with. The game was rigged from the start.  
“You okay there?” asked Zhanna. Michael hadn’t heard her approach.  
“I’m f-”  
“Don’t lie to me.”  
“Fine. What do you want to know?”  
“How’d you manage to make that Batman so angry? It’s really hard to get the Batman to do anything. Granted, my Batman was a woman, so maybe I’m biased.” She stared at him. “You were lying to Croc about your powers.”  
Michael nodded, and held out his hand. A ball of flame materialized there, and danced in his palm. “My third power… I think it’s meant to be used in combat. I have the ability to find weaknesses and exploit them. I’ve discovered it can also be used for mental defenses, to get under someone’s skin.” The flame went out when he clenched his fist, and then Michael turned back to Zhanna. “I needed to delay him, so you could kill Hatter.”  
“Why?”  
“Because Hatter forced our hands.” Michael was angry now. No denying it. “Waylon Jones was a victim who kept being beaten down. Batman did nothing. From what Lee told us of his past, all anyone ever did for him was experiment on him and mutate him even further than what made him a freak. I couldn’t help him. The game was rigged from the start.”  
Zhanna stared at him. How could she manage to stare for so long without blinking?  
“You know,” said Zhanna, “when I was a kid, my parents were attempting to bring their kingdoms together. My grandfather had died, and my father, Jason, was king of the Gargareans. My mother, Artura, was queen of Atlantis. Do you know how hard it is bringing two nations together, of such intense differences? It caused so much stress for my parents that they had to separate for a year. Everyone on both sides was dragging their heels, and they prevented what could have been the greatest nation on Earth. Do you know what I hated most about it?”  
Michael shook his head.  
“They took away my parents. I hated both people then. I hated them because they stared at me with a range of emotions from apathy to pity. I would never be as great a warrior as the Gargareans. I would never swim like an Atlantean. They thought I was weak without seeing me. Two nations, becoming one, and I had personal issues to deal with that were more important. So, don’t come at with your high-flying morality and philosophy. What’s wrong with you?”  
Michael’s hands had clenched over the course of her speech. He carefully uncurled his fingers, and sighed. “The game was rigged,” he said. “I couldn’t save him. It took centuries before Lee could help me.” He stared at Zhanna. “I don’t know if the same is true for me. What if I end up like him? Unable to turn back, a beast without a mind?” His voice quieted almost to a whisper. “What if I become like I was before? I’m so afraid, afraid I’ll lose control again.”  
Zhanna nodded. Then surprise of all surprises, she walked over and hugged him. She was warm and smelt of cheese sandwiches and sweat.  
“I don’t know,” she said. “But we’ll be here for you. We freaks have to stick together.”  
He laughed. “Thank you. I… thank you.”  
She leaned back and held him by the shoulders. “Say, there’s this late-night buffet in Metropolis that has the best beef stew I’ve ever tasted. You wanna get something to eat?”  
“Do you have money? More importantly, what brought that up?”  
“I always eat when I’m feeling down, and there’s nothing like grabbing some grub with your friends. Hows about it? Wanna gorge yourself?”  
“When you ask so kindly, how can I refuse? Lead the way to your wonderful beef stew.”  
A few hours later, the two of them left the late-night buffet, with fond memories of food, drink, friends and being kicked out of a buffet establishment for eating too much food.  
***  
Alfred Pennyworth had been Bruce Wayne’s butler for many years. He had been his friend since Bruce was six, when some scumbag had murdered Martha and Thomas Wayne, Bruce’s parents and Alfred’s closest friends. Alfred had become Bruce’s guardian, but more than that, he became Bruce’s closest confident, and the second person to ever know who Batman really was under the mask.  
Alfred had been a soldier, once, but a lifetime of cleaning Wayne manor and working with the magnificent tech Batman used had rendered him thin, without much of the fighting prowess from his younger days. His combat fatigues had been replaced with a butler’s suit, and his crew cut had, unfortunately, faded out, leaving his head bald on top and white on the sides. The only thing he chose to keep from his youth was a thin black mustache, carefully trimmed every morning to make sure it had just the right amount of propriety and style. He knew Bruce did the same for when he had to go to company parties, or the newest charity of the week.  
Right now, though, he was more interested in what Master Bruce was still doing in the Batcave, the subterranean complex that housed all of Batman’s gadgets. Master Bruce usually returned home and, after a few minutes putting away the suit, went to bed. Of course, with Master Bruce’s lifestyle, his sleep lasted only two hours, so Alfred seldom saw him sleep. So, what was he still doing down in the cave? Even Batman was still human.  
Alfred reached for the hidden lever in the back of the old grandfather clock, and a hidden doorway opened behind one of the bookcases. The elevator inside thrummed quietly with energy, blue lines running along the walls. There was only one floor to go to, so only a few buttons on the elevator. Alfred pressed the button for the cave and waited while the doors closed, and the elevator started to move. It had been a nightmare to get everything ready in secret. Alfred had to install most of the equipment himself. A challenge for a modern-day child, much less an old man from-  
One of Batman’s gauntlets lay on the ground.  
Alfred slipped his hand into his jacket and drew his pistol. It was a Smith and Wesson M&P 40C, recently cleaned by Alfred himself. He knew the pistol as well as he knew the mansion, and he knew the mansion very, very well.  
If Batman’s gauntlet was laying on the ground, either someone was here hurting him, or he had been hurt. Alfred hated the choice he made, but it was safer to assume there was an enemy here than it was to assume Bruce was hurt. Bruce’s safety was no guarantee, either way, but at least Alfred would be able to defend himself, should someone be in the cave. Where would Bruce be? Check by the computer, first. Easiest to leave a message there, in case he was being…  
Bruce sat slumped in the chair by the enormous screens of his batcomputer. It had the best specs in the world, above and beyond anything that could be bought on Amazon. Some of the parts Bruce had made himself. Around his chair, scattered remnants of his costume lay unheeded on the ground. Bruce’s head was in his hands, his eyes distant.  
“Master Bruce!” called Alfred. “Are you alright? Is there someone in here?”  
“I’m alone.”  
Two words. They held the same despair Alfred had heard from Bruce the night his parents were murdered. Alfred un-cocked his pistol and put it back in his shoulder carry. “Master Bruce, are you alright?”  
“No.” His voice was steady, but the undertone of despair reeked from his eyes, from the flat tone of his words. “Mad Hatter broke out of Arkham Asylum with Killer Croc under his control. Both of them are dead.”  
“How did it happen, sir?”  
“Killer Croc was killed with an ax to the chest. Impaled him, cleanly, and then ripped out the side to make sure he was dead. Mad Hatter had his head beaten in with a dining room table.” Bruce removed his hands from his face and steepled his fingers. “They were working with Lee. The man who killed the Joker.”  
“You’re sure of this, sir?”  
“Positive. One of Hatter’s killers, a demon, mentioned Lee by name, and he knew who I was.” His hands shook. “He knew enough about me to get in my head.”  
“Sir?”  
“He specifically referenced my father’s work and my mother’s empathy, the two best qualities of my parents. The things that I remember them by. He got me angry, and I didn’t think. I wanted to kill him.”  
“You’ve wanted to kill many times before, sir. If I may ask, what made this time different?”  
Bruce sighed, and his voice shook. That was the only betrayal of extreme emotion before he continued. “‘You have built so little that will last’. That’s what the demon said to me. He said I haven’t managed to change the situation in Gotham. That, despite my best efforts, the super- criminals I’ve met or created will always come back. That I haven’t done enough.”  
“I see, sir.” Alfred stared at his surrogate son, and pondered his next words carefully. “There have been many foes, I think, who’ve had issue with your methods. Every time, we’ve found there was something else behind their propaganda, some hidden motive they had that ruined what they said. Also, all the demons we’ve conversed with usually have forked tongues. This time should be the same.”  
“Not this time,” said Bruce. “This time, he was right.”  
“Sir? Sir, are you-”  
“I’m not going to kill anyone, Alfred. I refuse to break that rule. But I’ve spent so long running around, stopping leaks… Gotham needs better. I need it to be better. All I’ve been doing is preventing this city from sinking further into the mire and the mud. It’s time I pull it out.”  
Alfred nodded slowly. “And how are you going to go about that, sir?”  
Bruce stood up. “Brainiac’s ship has hundreds of thousands of advanced technologies, and enough information to make sorting a nightmare for the next few decades. But in that data, there has to be something… something to allow me to permanently deal with all my rogues’ gallery forever.”  
“Sir… this sounds dangerous. Are you sure you want to do this?”  
“I have to, Alfred. The demon told me he’d hand the future over to Lee if I couldn’t hold it.” His hand clenched, and his brow wrinkled in anger. “I will not let him have it. He’s a danger to everything the Justice League stands for. We are not an avenging force. We are a bulwark against anyone who would do Earth harm. We have rules. Lee doesn’t.” Batman frowned. “I’ll need to contact Superman. Meet with him later this week, to discuss what he’s collected already.”  
“I’ll put in a call to Mr. Kent immediately, sir. He should still be awake.”  
Alfred turned and walked away. Bruce watched him leave, and then lifted his fingers to the keyboard. He navigated through his menus to his records of criminals, and made a new entry.  
Name: Lee (alias likely) (last name unknown)  
Height: 5’10”  
Weight: 205 lbs.  
Sex: Male  
Ethnicity: Puerto Rican/American  
Notes: Extremely dangerous. Lee will target any he believes worthy of death and kill them with extreme prejudice. He has gathered to himself others that believe his message, and are capable of moving nation-wide quickly. Known associates include: Cain/Star, Michael, Zhanna. Currently resides in the House of Horrors. Location unknown.  
Batman folded his fingers. A good enough start. He would have to perform more reconnaissance on Lee and his associates. It was unlikely he only had these three associates.  
One thing he knew for sure, though: Lee was dangerous. And while he hadn’t done anything that was unconscionable by law, you could only walk that dark a road for so long before you slipped up. You just had to be patient.  
And Batman was very, very patient.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I finished this at 10:30 at night, but I didn't feel like making anyone wait any longer. Some creative notes.  
> Firstly, I did my research on Alfred and guns. It's canonical that Alfred is the only member of the Bat-family allowed to carry guns, so I kept that in. Second, I know very little about guns (though I have fired many) so I Googled "best concealed carry guns" and picked one, examining its specs for writing. However, if I've made a mistake with firearms, please let me know: I like writing guns, but I also like writing guns accurately.  
> Second, I am not turning Batman into a villain. I don't think he would go down that route. However, I am planning to make him a sort of antagonist. The thing about the antagonists, they don't have to be villains. And it was only a matter of time before Batman clashed with Lee over the latter's method of criminal excecutions. But no villains. I freely admit that I respect the goddammned Batman too much to do that route.  
> Third, I'm going to take this time to write stories about each of the characters interacting, which means fifteen stories for interactions. I don't want to go into the main arc half-cocked, with characters I don't understand. I hope they're entertaining, in the meanwhile.  
> And finally, Lee's ethnicity... that came out of necessity for writing a criminal profile. You can't just say "Ethnicity: WOULDN'T YOU LIKE TO KNOW?" and not have people upset. So yes, he's Puerto Rican. His family moved to the mainland states sometime in the past. I am assuming Batman would be enough of a criminal profiler to be able to identify him one way or another, rather than just straight "Hispanic". If not, something-something-something bat gadget.  
> It's almost 11:00. Thanks for reading, and have a good night. Or, if it's morning, good morning. Get to work, ya poozers!


	13. Of Mice and Mon- Gorillas

Cain, briefly, thought her life was probably better back when she wasn’t fighting gorillas.  
She created a bubble around her that absorbed the punch from a gorilla to her left, and then sheathed her arm in a gauntlet that she used to launch him (or her) several yards away. Non-lethal means, she reminded herself. Non-lethal. These were victims: the circlets on their heads with the blinking lights were controlling them.  
And the big gorilla in the middle of Central Park was controlling the circlets. He had a giant… oh, good lord. She couldn’t even… her world hadn’t been like this. There was magic, sure, and some advanced tech, but it was REASONABLE. You could explain it to someone.  
Now, Grodd, that gorilla up there, had a giant laser that would reflect off of some goddamned satellites and spread across the entire world, exploiting certain codes in the DNA of humans that would return them to a simpler primate state, as it would monkeys, gorillas, and whatever wasn’t either of those. Then, Grodd would rule the world as it’s Gorilla King.  
It was so messed up and beyond recognition that Cain didn’t even bother mentioning that bananas share 50% of their DNA with humans. It would’ve made the situation worse.  
Click was fine. She was… melting? Bouncing? She lacked the full shapeshifting powers of most Martians, but she was capable of using her powers in a way that, quote Lee, “Would make Plastic Man proud”. This was probably a good thing, but Cain had no idea who Plastic Man was.  
Her day actually started much simpler. She wanted to go for a flight.  
***  
“I’m really envious of you, you know.”  
Cain stopped charging her ring for a moment to turn to Lee. He was grinning at her. “About what? My ring?”  
“Well, I suppose, but more than that, you can fly. I’ve always wanted to fly.”  
“I can chuck you through the air, if you like.”  
“Look, I am trying to be perfectly amiable about your abilities, and you just gotta be mean about it.”  
“Why’d you bring it up?” Cain removed her ring from her lantern, and set it back on the bookcase she kept in her room. “I was minding my own business, and you just showed up.”  
“I’m just saying you’re wasting a perfectly good opportunity to see what Earth looks like from above.”  
“I’ve been in planes.”  
“Yeah, but have you FLOWN? Really been out there, all by yourself, with the sky and the clouds so close you could touch them?”  
“You seem to know an awful lot about flying.”  
“I’ve read a lot of comic books. It’s, like, the first thing they show you.”  
“Seriously?”  
“The very first superhero, Superman, could fly. Granted, we didn’t know he could fly for several years, but-”  
“Wait, what?”  
“Oh yeah, since 1938.”  
“WHAT?! You mean-”  
“He went through some revisions in my universe. The modern version of Superman wasn’t really around until… oh, the eighties.”  
“Good lord.”  
“Yeah. Batman’s been around since 1939, and Wonder Woman since 1941.”  
“How are they not old?”  
“Well, the entire universe has been reset several times. That affects someone’s age quite a bit.”  
“What the fuck.”  
“Did… is that not well known? Well, the universe resets every so often.”  
“What. You know what, I think I’ll go for a flight.”  
“What? Oh, okay then.”  
Cain left her room for outside the House. That was too much. He’d said he had knowledge, but GOOD LORD! The universe reset?! How the hell was someone supposed to deal with that?! What did this mean? Was the universe going to end?  
Before she could start getting any real distance, Lee leaned out of another door and said “You don’t need to worry about the universe ending. Every universe that has ‘ended’ still exists somewhere out there.”  
“Wait, what does that mean?”  
“It means we’ve never stopped existing!”  
“Not helping!”  
She did start flying, then: straight up into the air. She didn’t let up on her upward trajectory until she was well above the clouds, and then stopped to get a look around.  
It was beautiful.  
The day was sunny, so there were few clouds around her. The open expanse of the great blue sky almost engulfed her, the only other sign of color the gray-brown of the city beneath her and the brilliant white of the sun. Directly above her, the blue sky was just fading to black, and if she squinted she could just make out the stars. She had never seen anything like this before, not like this.  
“Hm, yes, very exciting. The sky. Never seen that before.”  
Cain groaned, and turned her attention the glowing cyan copy of herself. Star floated next to her without much of a care, and the wind that was blowing Cain’s hair like crazy wasn’t even affecting Star at all. It was much easier to care for.  
“I don’t understand why you hairless monkeys-”  
“Star.”  
“Oh, fine. I don’t know why you humans always get so excited by being in the sky. It’s really boring up here.”  
“If I have to keep explaining it to you, we’re going to have a bad time.”  
“Oh, lord, you humans are so limited. You should be like me!”  
“Have you ever tasted meat?”  
“Can’t say I have.”  
“Then shut up. You don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”  
“And you are a stubborn meat sack. The world is so much more interesting when you-”  
“Star, you’ve done that before, too. I get the sales pitch every time we bring this up. It’s like you were trying to unnerve me or something.”  
“No, I’m not. I’m just trying to show you all the interesting facets of being completely light.”  
“And to think, you wanted to completely take over my body.”  
Star shuddered. “Yes, and thanks to your friend I didn’t make that mistake. Can you imagine me, as a meat sack? It’s just too much. You have your body: I’ll take mine.”  
Cain had a retort to that remark, but it died before she could say anything. While she and Star were time-sharing her body, she’d done some research, and apparently there were a great number of villains who had split personalities that clashed when neither half could get along. That situation had been averted because Lee knew what was going on and took the time to talk it out. If it wasn’t for him, she’d be fighting Star for something Star wouldn’t even want.  
That, as it occurred to her, was probably why she came back, why she stuck around. Her previous life had been… chaotic, to say the least. And her current life was shaping to be more so. But Lee, he seemed to know what was going on: he had the knowledge to understand the way the world worked. If you found someone like that, you had to hold on to it tightly. Any amount of clarity was enough.  
And then, her bedrock in this chaotic new universe said it had been reset. At least twice.  
That was enough to shake anyone, that the laws of nature and the timeline of the entire universe would just end and become supplanted by something else. She didn’t even belong to this universe: who’s to say she wouldn’t die? Or worse, just stop existing?  
“What are you thinking about?”  
Cain shook her head. “Nothing. Just Lee.”  
“Oh, I see. Those meat emotions? Love?”  
“Nothing like that. He’s not my type.”  
“Yes, ugly people tend to not enter into romance.”  
“He’s not-” Cain paused. “He’s not THAT ugly. At least, he’s…” She had no words to defend him. He wasn’t TERRIBLY bad-looking, but he wasn’t handsome, not by a long shot. It was such a long shot that this Green Arrow person probably wouldn’t be able to make it. “…he’s nice?”  
“Ooh, and niceness is such a redemptive quality in a man.”  
“Okay, Star, who put a stick up your ass? What’s up with your attitude today?”  
“Nothing. I wish you wouldn’t be so insensitive.”  
“And you were quick to talk about meat space… you want to do something fun, don’t you?”  
“I didn’t say that.”  
“You implied.”  
“Okay fine! Your definition of fun is reading a book!”  
“That IS fun!”  
“No, it isn’t! You’re just staring at words on a page! I want to go out and DO something! ANYTHING!”  
“Okay, fine! How?”  
“I don’t know! Just find someone bouncy and bubbly who knows how to have fun!”  
“And we know someone like that?”  
There was a pause.

“Say what?” asked Click. She was upside-down on the ceiling of her room, attempting to swat her ceiling fan with a tennis racket.  
“Star’s bored,” said Cain, “and wants to do something, quote ‘fun’ unquote. We figured you would know where to go.”  
“Hm…” Click frowned for a moment. “Well, there was a party I was invited to.”  
“How did that happen?” Star’s arms were crossed, but otherwise she looked stunned, utterly and completely.  
“I have friends. I’m very popular with high school and college kids.”  
“How did THAT happen?”  
“Well, I’m an empath, but I can also send out emotional signals, so when people come to me and they’re super stressed, I can calm them down, or help them deal with emotional baggage. It helps the kids to focus and ends a lot of scuffles before they begin.”  
“But how did you come to be working in that position in the first place?”  
“Star,” said Cain, “I have a feeling that we don’t really want to know every step of Click’s journey. You have your fun.”  
“Yeah!” said Click. “It’ll be great! A bunch of college sophomores are getting together to play party games and eat a lot of carbs.”  
“And get drunk?”  
“No, they’re not 21 yet.”  
“Ah, well. Close enough.”

They had reached a large house in middle-class suburbia, with a crisply-cut green lawn and a new brown with tan highlights paint job. There was no white picket fence, but Cain thought it really didn’t need it. There was already music coming from inside the house, and a few college students, aided by nothing more than the power of finals, were attempting to throw a watermelon onto the roof.  
“I’m going inside,” said Click. “They’re just setting out punch. Join us when you’re ready, they know you’re coming.”  
“Can do,” said Cain. When Click had entered the house, she turned to Star. “Alright. You get meat space for a while, and I get to be light. Maybe then I’ll finally understand what you’re talking about.”  
“I suppose I can sacrifice for it,” said Star without any trace of sacrificial woe. “Alright, let’s swap.”  
Cain nodded. Her ring glowed brightly, almost matching the sun, and then she reached out and gripped Star’s hand. For one moment, it felt like something snapped for the both of them, like something in part was made whole, and then it was gone.  
Cain stared down at her hands. They were cyan, but otherwise her own. She had no weight, and though she could see the effect of wind on the trees, she couldn’t feel it. It was like every sense, except sight and sound, was instantly cut off.  
But in their place…  
She could feel light. Could smell it, taste it, touch it. The energy that most folks forgot existed floated around and through her. The Wi-Fi signal from the house. The signals from remote controls. Radio waves, electrical currents, all as physical sensations to her. It was wonderful, and completely overwhelming. She could spend hours, simply existing in this space.  
She was about to.  
***  
Star grinned at Cain, just standing there, doing the holographic equivalent of drooling. The first time she became solid light, Star also had issues with moving around, but the more she did so, the more used to it she got, and the more room she had for experimentation.  
It had been a while since Star was in meat space. She wasn’t quite ready for the deadening of her sight and sound, but she was ready to feel the wind. And smell… what were those? Sausages? Burgers! Smell burgers, their juices leaking out as the meat browned to a picturesque toughness, with a hint of… that settled it. She needed a burger.  
She immediately marched to the grill, where an overweight middle-aged man with a hilarious mustache was grilling wonderful-smelling meat things. She slapped her hand on the grill and said, “Get me ten burgers!”  
The mustachioed man instantly flipped her hand off the grill which, she realized, was hot, and said, “How about you start with one, young lady? I’m sure you could eat ten, but perhaps you need to pace yourself, first?”  
“Fine. Add cheese. Add everything!”  
He eyed her askance. “Hey, Rudy!”  
A large kid with blond hair who looked like he played football stood up. “What, coach?”  
“I’m off-duty and you’re at my kid’s party. It’s Art while you’re here.”  
“Sorry. What’s up, Art?”  
“This girl here just asked for everything, like you.”  
Rudy raised an eyebrow at Star. “Did you, now?”  
“I asked for ten burgers, first. I want to eat everything.”  
Rudy nodded. “Art, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”  
Art grinned and flipped his baseball cap to point backwards. “We’re gonna have ourselves an eating contest.”

Star had been told the rules. Apparently, one competed by eating as much food as they could. She only wondered why no one else had set this up before.  
On a plate on the table before her lay a burger with, as Art put it, ‘the works’. There was also a can of carbonated liquid called Root Beer, and a handful of those delicious snacks called chips. After that, there was a line of hot dogs which were beginning to cool and looked nothing like canines. An equal set of snacks was before the quarterback Rudy. He was grinning at her.  
“The rules are simple,” said Art. “You must first eat your burger, followed by all your chips and downing your root beer. Then, and only then, are you allowed to eat hot dogs. The first one to finish their line wins.”  
“I’m not going to go easy on you,” said Rudy. “Pardon me for saying so, but I like to win.”  
“It’s fine,” said Star. “I’m just here to eat, honestly.”  
“Good luck?” Rudy was holding his hand.  
“Good luck.” Star shook it.  
“Begin!”

What Followed Was An Exercise In All The Reasons Humans Are Viewed As Disgusting And Vile. We Interrupt This Segment Of The Story To Bring You A Summation Of All The Events That Occurred During This Travesty. Suffice To Say That A Lot Of Food Was Eaten, And A Winner Was Declared. Star Won, But Not Without First Sacrificing Her Dignity, And Second Giving Her The Newest Experience To Meat Space That She Found She Regretted: Being Too Full.

Star lay on the ground and groaned. Beside her, Rudy lay on the ground and giggled.  
“Oh, man!” he said, laughter nearly choking him. “I haven’t had a challenge like that in months! I thought you were gonna lose, to be honest for a bit, but then you took three hot dogs and-”  
He kept talking, but Star felt odd, like everything she’d just consumed was coming back up. She didn’t like it, and she liked it less when she burped, long and loud and strong, like a low E of burps.  
Rudy laughed. “Nice one!” Then he ripped out a belch as well, about a middle C.  
Star groaned, and then found herself laughing, and then found herself in pain, which made her laugh again, which made her do this weird laugh where her chest hurt and there were tears running down her face. No, wait: crying. That was what it was called.  
“Hey,” said Rudy, “are you okay?”  
“I just… I love being alive!” Tears were streaming down her face. “I just love being alive!”  
“Are… did something happen?”  
It was amazing. The smell of grass beside here. The aftertaste of ketchup. The feeling of a bug on her hand. It was life, vital and pure. She’d felt this before. When she had first taken her turn with the body, it had overpowered her. She couldn’t believe humanity lived with this kind of thing all the time. Just… hell! Breathing was WONDERFUL on its own.  
“I’m okay,” she said through a shaky voice. “Life is just wonderful.”  
He stared at her a moment, and then walked away. How could he just walk away from this? From life itself being lived? How could he just… walk away from that?  
Her thoughts were drawn uncomfortably to the present by the sounds of smashing.  
Click had left the party via the door that now existed in the roof and probably the ceiling of the first story and the floor of the second. She flopped with great noise onto the lawn, and stood up singing “Oh What a Beautiful Morning” from Oklahoma. She looked at Star and grinned. “Hiya, friend!” she said with a slur. “Isn’t life wonderful?”  
Star stood. “It is! Finally, someone understands!”  
“Yay!” Click clapped. “I’m gonna go thadaway!” she leaped from there and stomped through several cars before jumping straight through a house and off into the wild blue wander.  
It wasn’t long before police sirens started going off, and Art started barking out orders for all the kids to get inside and see if anyone was injured. Star was too stunned at what had just transpired to notice someone walking behind her.  
“Pardon me,” said a voice.  
She squeaked and leaped to her feet. Her ring was already glowing. “Who are you?”  
The man in question cleared his throat and looked rather chagrined that he had scared her. He was wearing a brown trench coat and fedora, like an old pulp novel. Even his face looked like Humphrey Bogart.  
“Pardon me, miss,” he said, “but I think you need to come with me. Your friend, she’s not well.”  
“What do you mean?”  
“I’ll tell you on the way. It’s important that we stop your friend before she goes any further with her sugar-induced rampage.”  
“Wait, what?”  
“Did you not know this? Cookies are incredibly addictive to Martians, and your friend is no exception.”  
“How do you know about here?”  
“Time is of the essence, Ms. Star.”  
“I’ll say it is when- how did you know my name?”  
“Time for that later.” The detective started running. “By the way, my name is John Jones.”  
“Are you a superhero?”  
“How’d you know?”  
“I was told to keep an eye out for anyone who has an alliterative name. They have a much higher frequency of being superheroes.”  
“That is… oddly correct. You say a friend told you this?”  
“Friend of a friend.” A leaping form caught her attention. “Can you fly?”  
“I can.”  
Star leaped into the air, her clothes changing to her cyan costume, and the aura around her propelled her into the sky. A moment later, the man in the trench coat floated beside her.  
“I take it you’re not an ordinary human,” she said.  
“Not even human.” His physical form rippled and changed colors, revealing green skin, a bald scalp and pure red eyes. He wore blue pants and a two red bandolier-style straps across his chest, and a loose blue cape over his shoulders that extended upward into a collar. “J’onn J’onnz, the Martian Manhunter, at your service, Star.”  
“Fantastic. You’re willing to work with me?”  
“Your association with Lee is regrettable, but I trust you will do the right thing.”  
“Sure, sure. I’m not going to put down my f- acquaintance.”  
“Very well. The sugar is putting her into a rage. I sensed from your mind she is half-Martian, half-Tamaranian. This means she may not be weak to fire, and the sugar is making her Martian half weak, while her Tamaranian half sends her into a frenzy.”  
“I take it you don’t have those adverse effects to cookies?”  
“No, I… I merely enjoy them a great deal. It’s the withdrawal that hurts.”  
“Got it. How can we stop here?”  
“Her mind has a field around it. If we get close enough, I assume that we could shut her down until this state wears off.”  
“You assume?”  
“I don’t know if it will work, and that leaves our second option.” For emphasis, J’onn smacked his fist into his palm.  
“Okay… sounds good.”  
***  
Cain pulled out of her stupor to find Star gone. She frowned. Where could she have gone? A slight tugging feeling. Towards the southerly direction. Up there. A figure in light blue. With a green figure. Odd. Cain flew after them.  
She was flying after them. She would fly after them. She had flown after them. What was happening? What had happened? She couldn’t feel anything. The light. The light was still there. Stagnant. Empty. Nothing changing. Movements, rhythms, shifting, but never changing. Never.  
Get out. She needed to get out. She had needed to get out. Get free. Gotten free. Leave. Leave.  
GET OUT.  
***  
The two of them flew down to street level, where Click was punching a car window despite there being no glass. Star and J’onn landed next to her. Click grinned at them both.  
“Hi! Is a car!” She grinned and lifted the car above her head. “Catch!”  
The car hit J’onn straight-on, sending him rocketing backward through several buildings until he was out of sight. Star created some armor to put around herself and called Lee.  
‘Hey, what’s up? You three having fun?’  
‘Can it.’  
‘Star? How’d you get… you two switched bodies?’  
‘We did. How do you deal with a Martian on cookies?’  
‘…you’re not serious, are you?’  
‘Why?’  
‘They’re basically a narcotic. They zone out.’  
‘Not Click. She’s gone on a rampage.’  
‘I was not expecting that… okay. Taking the cookies away probably won’t do any good. J’onn J’onnz got rid of it when he expunged the part of his brain that gets addicted from his mind. How’s that working out?’  
‘He’s been thrown through several buildings.’  
‘Oh, he’ll be fine. That fact that Click threw him is a testament to how strong she is, however. That might be troublesome.’  
‘What can I do against that?!’  
‘You have literally one of the most powerful weapons in the universe. It’s powered by your imagination. Can you make fire against Click?’  
‘Click doesn’t fear fire.’  
‘Okay, then. Just beat the crap out of her.’  
‘Are you sure?’  
‘Better she be bruised than everyone in her way be dead.’  
‘Alrighty, then.’ Star powered up her ring, and created a giant hammer with which she smushed Click.  
Click caught the hammer, however, and threw it off. “Time to play? I love to play!”  
Star didn’t wait for another word. She created a large number of guns and started firing.  
Click dodged them all, leaping from building to building like an anti-gravity parkour master, aiming straight at Star with her hands in fists.  
Star created a giant frying pan and smashed Click in the face with it, sending her hurtling through the air and into Central Park.  
Star leaped into the air and started hurtling in the same direction. The wind whipped around her as she forced her speed to increase, the air burning around her. She was only protected by the magical properties of the ring.  
She slammed down in Central Park, next to a prone Click who was grinning like a maniac, and a gorilla on a giant machine thing and an albino gorilla with a large head wait what?  
“Ah, the monkeys attempt to stop me.” The gorilla on the machine pedestal leaped down and stalked towards Star and Click. “Your attempts will do you no good. You are, at this very moment, in my clutches.”  
‘Lee?’ asked Star. ‘What do you know about gorillas?’  
‘Depends. Albino or normal?’  
‘Both.’  
‘What is the albino one doing?’  
‘Just kinda… zoned out?’  
‘Okay, and the normal one?’  
‘Monologuing.’  
‘Oh, damn. That’s Gorilla Grodd. He’s a bad dude.’  
‘How bad?’  
‘Genocidal.’  
‘So he’s fair game?’  
‘Sure. Just remember he’s got psychic powers, he’s super strong, and he hates being called a monkey.’  
‘Really?’  
‘Pisses him off to – ow – no end.’  
‘Ow?’  
‘Dealing with some stuff right now. Talk to you later. Good luck!’  
Star sighed, then took a deep breath. “Hey! MONKEY!”  
Grodd stopped leaning over Click to glower in Star’s direction. “MONKEY?!” he roared. “I am a GORILLA! I created a machine that lets me control relations to me! I created a de-evolution ray powered by nothing but solar! I put a satellite in orbit without Superman knowing! I am the greatest gorilla the ever was! And now I’m going to turn the entirety of humanity into the perfect species, before their twisted branch from our family! So says Gorilla Grodd!”  
And then he narrowed his eyes at her.  
It was a very intimidating eye narrowing, but nothing much happened. The silence that filled Central Park was broken only by the occasionally tittering of birds.  
“Why aren’t you dead?” Grodd asked. It was as much a demand as a confused statement.  
‘He’s very strong,’ said House in Star’s head. ‘I’ll only be able to protect one of you at a time.’  
‘Good to know,’ Star replied. Then she blasted Grodd in the face.  
The large gorilla slammed back into his machine, rocking it back before slamming him into a control panel. The trees surrounding the machine fizzed with electronic static before disappearing completely, leaving the four of them in a wide-open clearing.  
“Holograms?” Star asked.  
“It helps to keep away prying eyes,” Grodd replied. “And you would be fool to think, with all these zoological gardens around, that I would not recruit backup. Take them!”  
Dozens of gorillas poured out of the nearby trees, forming a barrier between Star and Click and the massive skyward-pointed array. A few of the larger ones leaped onto the platform, including the albino gorilla with the large forehead.  
‘He’s got an army of gorillas, Lee.’  
‘Of course he does. The albino gorilla, is he wearing a kind of red harness?’  
‘He is.’  
‘Sounds like Ultra-Humanite. He’s a body-stealing megalomaniac. If you can kill him, that’d be great. Don’t hurt the other gorillas, though: most gorillas are good people.’  
‘Say what?’  
‘You heard me.’  
Star groaned. “Alright, Click?”  
“Mmyeah?”  
“These gorillas are all being controlled by that white gorilla and the one with the evil grin.”  
“Okay?”  
“Those two guys stole your cookies.”  
“I’LL MURDER THEM.”  
Click rampaged through the gorillas, throwing them every which way. Star had heard gorillas were strong, but Click was, apparently, stronger. It was almost like they were children, and-  
Something grazed her cheek. Star reestablished the barrier around her, and looked up to see several gorillas with guns.  
Of course, they had guns.  
“You’re not focused,” said a voice behind Star. She turned her head enough to see who was talking, and was greeted with her only ghostly glowing form. “Let me take over.”  
“Fine,” said Star. “I’ve had enough fun for one day.”  
The same brilliant flash, and then Star was back in her holographic form. Back in the stagnant emptiness that was her life.  
***  
And that was how Cain got here. She slammed an anvil into several gorillas before creating several boxers to punch out the gorillas. She wasn’t getting any closer to Grodd, but she could hear him explaining his evil plan™ and how he was going to turn everyone into gorillas or some such.  
Gorilla Grodd was behind a force shield of some sort, almost ignoring Click and Cain in favor of getting his machine in working order. It was maddening, but she couldn’t help it. She had to fight gorillas.  
So she did. She created hundreds of constructs and tossed them away just as fast. Goats, football players and teddy bears, anything she could think of to keep them off her back. Click changed from one form to another, and yet they still couldn’t get close. If only they had something, some way of…  
The force fields. They were round, but they didn’t extend below ground. Perfectly spherical, with Grodd and his control panels at the center. This left part of the base of the machine uncovered, not enough to do damage, but below that was soft earth.  
Cain created a wall and shoved all the gorillas away, making the walls tall and slick to prevent them from getting in. Then she created a giant shovel with her ring, and slammed it into the earth next to the machine. She forced it down, forced it to dig out the base. If she got enough, perhaps she could… it was moving! She was getting the earth up! She could…  
The base of the machine was the only thing that remained.  
She looked up to see the control center of the machine floating in the air. Grodd was sneering at her, his gorilla guards hovering around him, the Ultra-Humanite next to him. “You really thought I wouldn’t plan on someone sabotaging the base of the machine? I installed anti-gravity systems long before you arrived. And the machine’s fully-charged, now. Goodbye, homo sapien.”  
There was a glowing blue light in the middle of the machine. Click was staring up at it, and grinning like a dope.  
“You’ve got to stop that!” said Star.  
“I know!” Cain yelled back. “But I can’t get through that shield!”  
“So what?! His laser can get through it, and it’s practically the same color!”  
“It’s not that simple! Maybe the laser can get through it, but my…” Come to think of it, that laser was the same color. Almost exactly the same. An idea formed in Cain’s mind. She willed her ring to protect her with a thicker shield, and then created a giant mirror formed above Grodd’s laser just as it fired.  
The laser hit the shield and reflected back down at Grodd.  
It stood to reason that any mirror Cain created with her ring would only be able to reflect a select amount of light. White light would be reflected as cyan, and most blues and greens would lose most of their brightness, but any pure cyan light would be reflected back with no problem. Of course, that laser wasn’t exactly pure cyan.  
The laser was pushing a great deal of energy into Cain’s ring, and it was rippling from her ring up her arm. She smelled burning flesh, and her arm stung. If she let up for a second, though, that light would get through, and strike the satellite in orbit, and then everyone would be well and truly doomed.  
So she held on. And it hurt. By every god in every heaven, it hurt. And she could do nothing but hold on, and scream.  
After what felt like an eternity, the light faded, and the control module crashed to the ground. It smelt of burnt flesh, fur and circuitry. The Ultra-Humanite was burnt to a crisp, and Gorilla Grodd wasn’t much better, though he was still alive.  
Cain staggered over to him, and pointed her ring at him.  
Grodd grinned. “So, you’ve beaten me. Where are you going to imprison me, now?”  
“Hell.” And she shot his head with a holographic bullet. The smoking hole in his head gradually cooled, and the smoke disappeared.  
Cain turned to see the Martian Manhunter standing beside Click. He was holding her by the head, extracting something from her forehead.  
“What are you doing?” Demanded Cain.  
“Please don’t interrupt,” J’onn replied. “I am extracting the part of her brain that becomes addicted to sugar. This is a delicate process.”  
Cain stood very still. The gorillas were hooting at each other and running around central park, but that could best be left to the authorities. Cain watched as J’onn pulled something black and slimy from Click’s forehead and crushed it. Click fell limp, but J’onn was there to catch her.  
“She’ll be alright,” he said. “She just needs some rest.” He stared at her. “You killed Grodd.”  
There was no malice in his view. No judgement. Just a simple statement. “Yes.”  
“Why?”  
“You can read minds, can’t you? That’s what I’ve heard.”  
“Not yours. Yours is protected. In your own words, why did you kill him?”  
“Why? He would have hurt everyone else. He was genocidal. He hated humanity, and literally EVERYTHING he did was for the destruction of the entire species. MY species.”  
“It is not right to kill.”  
“Isn’t it? How many White Martians have you killed?”  
“That is… different.”  
“Is it?”  
“White Martians are creatures of evil, who know only torture and pain.”  
“All of them?”  
“…no.”  
“So that means there are a few that are good, worth saving?”  
“…yes.”  
“That means that there are some on Earth who are evil, beyond saving.”  
“…yes.” He hung his head.  
“Then we’re just the first to realize it. Thank you for your help. I’ll take my friend back to base.”  
J’onn handed Click off to Cain, who carried her to the nearest door and back into House’s domain.  
The robed woman was waiting for them. “I see you’re back.” Her eyebrows raised at Click’s unconscious form, and her eyes narrowed. “Is she alright?”  
“She should be fine,” said Star, suddenly hovering beside Cain. “J’onn said she just needs a few days to rest.”  
House sniffed. “I’ll believe it when I see her get up.” The room rearranged itself, so it was Click’s room, messy and all. “Lay her down here. I’ll keep tabs on her.”  
“Thank you.”  
“Now, as for you two…” House stared between the two of them. “What’s up with you? Your emotions are completely out of whack.”  
“Did you just say ‘whack’?” asked Star.  
“I know slang, you egg-sucking cretin! Don’t change the subject!”  
Star and Cain looked at each other, and then Cain spoke. “I hate being a lightform projection. It’s nice for a little while, but being in that body, with… it…”  
“…nothing changes,” said Star. She waved her hand back and forth over the lamp next to Click’s bed. “It’s stagnant. When you’re in a body, there are changes and growth and life and death, but it’s constant chaos. With this, it’s perfect order. Nothing. It’s stifling… it’s…”  
“…it hurts. It’s like being deprived of all your senses at once.”  
“And I, for one, cannot go back there. I won’t. I don’t like being like this, this… empty form. I was scared when I first felt humanity. Now… now I don’t think I could deal with anything less.”  
House sniffed. “Fine. You want a body? I’ll give you one.”  
“Really?”  
“But!”  
Star and Cain both drew a sharp breath.  
“It won’t work outside of my domain. I can’t guarantee it. If you want a body that badly, you have to stay here. I could make it able to swap you two back and forth, but whoever was in the House body wouldn’t be able to leave. Would you accept that? Imprisonment over asphyxiation?”  
Star and Cain looked at each other. “Would we be able to swap?” asked Cain.  
“You would.”  
“Then we’ll do it. And I’ll take the body first.”  
“Are you sure?” asked Star.  
“I know what it’s like, being a lightform,” said Cain. “I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. I trust you to switch back and forth with me.”  
“You don’t know that!”  
“I know you well enough. You charged after Click to save her. You tossed her away from the city to save innocents. I know you’ll do the right thing.”  
“There is another way,” said House. “If we merged the two of you into a single personality, you would only need one body.”  
“That’s basically murder!” said Cain. “I won’t condone it! Not if Star has to die for our freedom!”  
“I’m fine!” said Star. “We’ll do the two-body thing. That’s good enough for me.”  
House nodded. “Very well. This will take some time. Get settled, the two of you.”  
Cain and Star both nodded and started to leave the rooms.  
“And just so you both know…”  
The two of them stopped and turned.  
“I know what it’s like to be trapped. Trust me, I know. If you’re ever feeling claustrophobic, and you want to get out, I’m here for you.” House smiled at them, an honest, genuine smile. “I am, and I always shall be, your friend.”  
Cain nodded. “We will never forget it.”  
“Good. Now, let me fix your bloody arm! It smells like a sack of fried chicken, and that’s hardly healthy!”  
***  
In orbit around Earth, there is a space station unlike any other. It was built by heroes. Millions of dollars’ worth of equipment is up there, constantly monitoring the planet for any threat too great for one hero to take on. It was built by the Justice League, and though their original ranks of seven members have grown, they have always maintained more members, more connections, to make sure the world is always safe. Sometimes they disagree, but they are always sure to talk it out, to be a single, dedicated fighting force for the good of humanity.  
It was with some irony that J’onn recognized, perhaps, that by doing so, they had hurt more than they had helped.  
He had called a meeting with the original seven members. At the moment, they were discussing what they could do with Brainiac’s technology. From what he could read of their minds, they had good intentions and good plans. They would help a great many people.  
The doors opened, sliding apart like that TV show from the 60’s, and Superman stood there. His mind was difficult to read, but his face wasn’t: friendly, yet somber. “Come in, J’onn. We’re ready for you.”  
J’onn J’onnz, the Martian Manhunter, stepped into the circular meeting room. There was a single round table with seven chairs, the heraldry of each hero emblazoned on each chair. Six of them were seated. Only Batman stood to the side, in the darkest part of the room.  
“Well, J’onn,” said Superman. “You called us here. What is it you want to talk about?”  
Martian Manhunter walked over to the window, at the view of Earth. It was always here, always reminding everyone of why they fought, why they worked together. Today, it would remind him of why he came. “It is in regards to Lee, the man who killed the Joker.”  
Their thoughts grew tense. “What about him?” asked the Flash. His red costume bore its distinctive yellow lightning bolts, the one in the middle surrounded by a yellow circle, almost as bright as his yellow hair. His mask was off, so the decorative yellow wings weren’t visible, but the boots he wore were distinctly yellow, and one of them was on his knee.  
“One of his operatives spoke to me, recently. The woman called Cain. There was an altercation with Gorilla Grodd and the Utlra-Humanite where the two villains were killed.”  
“Good riddance,” said Wonder Woman. She wore a red, white and blue leotard with a skirt designed like the Roman legions’. Her golden Lasso of Truth was at her side, her black boots almost up to her knees. They looked ridiculous, to some on Earth, but in reality they were armored and just as lethal as her bracelets or even her tiara. Her sword and shield were also strapped to her back, and J’onn knew they were lethally sharp. “They were enough trouble to deal with. Now, they’ll never endanger anyone ever again.”  
“Diana!” said Superman. “That was unkind.”  
“Not necessarily untrue,” said Arthur Curry, the Aquaman, slipping once again into an old argument. He wore a suit with green gloves and pants, and orange scaled shirt. The scales were made from a legendary fish, and nearly unbreakable. His trident was held beside him, making him look as regal as his kingly office befitted. Aquaman, unlike Wonder Woman, followed the guidance of the League and never killed his opponents, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t chafed under it before. There was one notable occasion in his past, and of particular note he often argued with the League when it came to killing monsters.  
“That’s not the way we work,” said Green Lantern. John Stewart was a soldier, a marine, and a good man. His head was bald, like J’onn’s, but he wore a goatee. His black and green uniform bore the emblem of the Green Lantern corps, a circle with two horizontal lines intersecting the top and bottom. “We’re the cops, not the judge and jury. We don’t decide who lives and who dies.”  
Cyborg, with his metallic parts covering up one half of his body (including his cybernetic red eye) and the Flash stayed out of these fights, for the most part. Today, though, J’onn couldn’t let it continue.  
“They are not wrong,” he said.  
All eyes were on him. “What do you mean?” asked Superman. “What’s going on, J’onn?”  
J’onn continued to stare out the window. “They knew. They knew of the extinction of my race. Of the White Martians. They knew of Till’all and M’Gann M’orzz, and the other White Martians who sided against their race. They implied that it was our own fault so many people died.”  
“J’onn,” said Superman, “what happened was not your fault.”  
“I have made peace with the death of my world.” J’onn grimaced. “But gods, Clark! What they said makes SENSE!”  
The room was silent.  
“We have let criminals return to the system time and again, and though we have worked to change it, nothing has helped. What if Zod emerges from the Phantom Zone yet again? Or worse, the Red Lanterns come? What if we are unable to save the Earth yet again? We have come too close too many times, and we have let our enemies live. The worst scum on your planet live, while innocents are made to die because of it.”  
The room was still silent. J’onn could practically see the incredible speed that Clark’s brain was working at, but he had to finish.  
“I cannot go on,” he said. “Not while we let this happen. I have seen too much death to do it on my own, but I cannot support those that enable such a travesty to continue. And for that…” He paused. It was harder than he had thought it would be. How much of his life on Earth had come from these people? His words were not enough. The people of Earth had no telepathy of their own, but it was the best way to share things. J’onn opened his mind to them, and put as much love, affection and sorrow into his words that he could muster, for these, his truest friends. “…I must leave the Justice League.”  
The shock and awe for what he said was in their minds as well as their faces. None of them said a word. Only Batman remained as stoic in his mind as his expression.  
“I am… eternally grateful for what you’ve done for me. I pray that I find another team, just as good as you, who will accept me. I…” C’eridyall, he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t say anymore, or he would break. “…goodbye.” Again, he infused that with as much emotion as he could, but it was all he could do to walk away without sobbing.  
***  
Deep in the recesses of the House of Horrors, the Martian/Tamaranian Click slept fitfully, dreaming of sweet things and nice memories. Her breathing was steady, but from her lips a gout of flame emerged, scorching the side of her pillow, and then gone in a poof.  
The flame was enough to cause fear and horror, if not outright trembling and pain, in most Martians, at that was before they touched it. In her, it left no reaction at all.  
She groaned and rolled over and dreamed of recent memories. Of the de-evolution beam, of it being reflected mostly by Cain. Of how some of that light deflected off the shield and shot into her, awakening an aspect of herself that hadn’t been seen in millennia, that no Martian, neither White nor Green, had even the vaguest recollection of. An aspect that had been bred out by the Guardians of the Universe, the Oans and founders of the Green Lantern corps.  
And with that awakening, the last Burning Martian stirred.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have I ever told you how hard it is to spell "J’onn"? Your fingers have to do this super unnatural thing with the apostrophe key, and it disrupts your entire writing, and have I mentioned I hate Martian names? Because I do. Too many N's and Z's. And the apostrophes! Don't get me started on apostrophes!  
> Anyway.  
> It looks like I'm going to have to make some canonical cuts. So, I'm saying that the Forever Evil Earth-3 arc hasn't happened, because HOLY HECK there are so many Green Lanterns! So, Simon Baz? Nope. Not dealing with that. Jessica Cruz? Exciting for equality, but... again, not dealing with that. Hal Jordan? He's in space... thataway. Guy Gardener? Red Lantern. Kyle Rayner? White Lantern. That way, only one GL on Earth. As a side, that means this is also Barry Allen. I'm not sure how I'm going to deal with Wally West, yet, but I don't think I'll be using the DC Rebirth stuff, because I cannot deal with a universal reset in my own story. Expect some canon wrinkles to be ironed out with EXTREME PREJUDICE. Hopefully, I shouldn't have to explain any of this in-story, so those of you who only watch the cartoons aren't going "Wait, what?".  
> Thanks, as always, for reading. Next chapter should bring Lee back to the forefront.


	14. Ramblin' and Gamblin'

“I’m really envious of you, you know.”  
Sean woke up to perfectly inane flirting. What’s up with that? He should wake up to his room being full of money, and a beautiful woman on each arm. Not… god. Teenagers.  
“About what? My ring?”  
“Well, I suppose, but more than that, you can fly. I’ve always wanted to fly.”  
Oh, lord. He’s not flirting. Sean got out of bed, and crept to the hallway, stalking the two of them from a few paces back.  
“I can chuck you through the air, if you like.”  
Perfectly reasonable response on her part. Be rude and send him away. Or make it look like you’re playing hard-to-get. Damned if he couldn’t tell the difference. Probably.  
“Look, I am trying to be perfectly amiable about your abilities, and you just gotta be mean about it.”  
Good confidence, put the ball back in her court.  
“Why’d you bring it up? I was minding my own business, and you just…”  
Their voices faded as Sean stopped following them. No chance he was going to succeed, here. Ugh! Why couldn’t he hang out with glamorous people? All he had were these seven weirdos. Now, Sarah! Sarah was a woman who knew class! She knew…  
…well, she was gone, wasn’t she? And he was helpless to stop it.  
Sean shook his head. Not that again! No more moping for ol’ Sean, the… um… there should be a title there, shouldn’t there? Blast it all, no memory of it. Why is that? There’s something so familiar about a title, and yet it eludes his grasp.  
Frustrating. The only way to deal with frustration is to mess with people.  
He walked down to House’s main room, and heard the voices picking back up again.  
“…the universe resets every so often.”  
Not the thing to say to a girl, probably.  
“What. You know what, I think I’ll go for a flight.”  
“What? Oh, okay then.”  
The door shut, not quite a slam but also not quiet. Lee was staring at the door with a look of confusion and sadness on his face.  
“What’d you do?” asked Sean.  
“Nothing, I swear! We were just having a conversation.”  
“Really? Then you should apologize for the weird things you said.”  
“How?”  
“Just explain to her that it’s really not all that bad.”  
Lee smacked his fist into his palm. “You’re right! House, would you please move the door?” Then he ran to the door, and called out, “You don’t need to worry about the universe ending. Every universe that has ‘ended’ still exists somewhere out there.”  
“Wait, what does that mean?” Came Cain’s voice from the other side.  
“It means we’ve never stopped existing!”  
“Not helping!”  
The door slammed in Lee’s face, and he back up, confused. “That didn’t go well,” he said.  
“You think?”  
“I was just trying to have a conversation. Why is that so hard?”  
“Because you suck at them?”  
“You’re not helping.”  
“I’m providing criticism.”  
Lee make a noise like a strangled seal (how did he know that?) and stomped off. Sean grinned and followed after him.  
“Why are you following me?”  
“I’m bored.”  
“Be bored somewhere else.”  
“I am walking somewhere else.”  
“Be bored somewhere else away from me.”  
“No.”  
“Gagh!” Lee bounded from his walking position to somewhere among the large ventilation ducts and vanished into a tube in the wall. Sean watched him leave with a grin on his face.  
“Why do you do that?” asked House. Sean hadn’t heard her coming, but he was rarely surprised by things. Some sort of heightened awareness of his surroundings.  
“It’s fun,” said Sean. “And I’m bored.”  
“I’m a house with infinite potential,” said House, “and you’re bored.”  
“Yep. I need to get out, do something with my hands. It’s all stuffy in here. Can’t do anything.”  
“What do I even… fine. You want to do something?”  
“Dearly!”  
“Alright. There’s a gambling ring in Singapore-”  
“-that you want me to take out?”  
“-that is hosting a party for the richest of the rich in one of their largest casinos. Notably, two well-known international and rival gangsters (of little value to our group) are meeting there, and both have bounties on their heads. They have also hired two assassins to take out the other.”  
“This is all so interesting, but from your statements I take it that I’m… not supposed to care… about the awesome gangsters?”  
“You’re supposed to care about the assassins. One of them is named Anatoli Knyazev, and operative for the now-defunct Soviet Union brought into the 21st century. The other is Slade Wilson, an operative for the United States who went rogue. They are better known by their monikers-”  
A wall exploded, and Lee stood in the new passageway, covered in wall… dust? Whatever walls were made of. “KGBeast and Deathstroke!” There was a large grin on his face.  
“Yes, those are their names,” House said. “Need I remind you there was a door? An open door?”  
“It was too far away.” Why was he grinning? “Oh, man! I can’t wait to meet those guys!” His face fell. “Oh, right. Bad guys. We’re going to have to kill them.” His expression grew cloudy. “Why is life so terrible?”  
“What’s up with him?”  
“I think Deathstroke was one of his favorite characters,” said House.  
“He liked a bad guy?”  
“It’s easier when they’re not real!” Lee said. “Like, you know Sauron?”  
“No.”  
“Right, locked in a box.” Lee paused for a moment. “Okay, how about… um… ah! Poseidon! From the Odyssey!”  
“Yeah, I know him.”  
“I hate that guy,” mumbled House.  
Lee stopped, and his eyes glazed over. “That’s right, the Greek gods are real people.” He sighed. “Alright. Part of what makes an excellent hero is a good villain. Batman, in comic book form, had several, most notably the Joker, but also including Bane, Riddler, and Deathstroke, who’s like Batman if he liked killing people and worked for money. Every time he showed up, he forced the heroes to new levels. I respect that. But here…” His gaze faded away, like he was looking somewhere else. “…it’s like breaking a stained-glass window.”  
“A murder-y stained glass window.” Sean crossed his arms. “I’m not seeing how you can sympathize with him. He’s an assassin, right?”  
“One of the worst,” said House. “His rank went up after Lady Shiva died.”  
Lee sighed. “Yeah, he is. Alright, alright, I’m fine. I’m adapting.” He frowned. “I’m just not looking forward to telling his family.”  
“He has family?” asked Sean.  
“Yeah. I think three or four kids. Not that he’s a really good dad, but he really does love them.”  
“You didn’t have this much hesitation with the Joker,” said House.  
Lee sighed. “That’s… different. Joker is… WAS an unknown. He liked hurting people, and he was evil. We didn’t know why he did the things he did. Deathstroke, though… I know all about him. It’s hard to hate someone when you know their life story.”  
“Not really,” said Sean. “I knew this guy, William Augustus something or other… anyway, he killed a lot of people in this rebellion, but I knew him growing up. He became known as Butcher Cumberland. I hated his guts.”  
“Fine, okay? I hate his guts. Let’s go kill him.”  
“What about the other man?” asked House.  
“KGBeast? Don’t care. Not as long of a history.”  
“That’s rude.”  
“Did I mention he’s a loyal Soviet? I don’t have a lot of sympathy for Soviets. Deathstroke may be a maniacal killing machine, but he’s an AMERICAN maniacal killing machine, and that makes all the difference!”  
“Does it?”  
“No! We’re going to kill them both.” Lee sighed one last time, then clapped his hands together. “Alright, House: I take it we’re going to infiltrate the casino as wait staff, and then kill the assassins when they appear?”  
“No.”  
“What?”  
“I mean, it doesn’t make much sense,” said Sean. “With wait staff, and especially with an event this large, and guests as paranoid as gangsters are, the wait stuff is gonna have thorough background checks, and everyone who organizes the part is gonna know where all the wait staff is at every moment. Neither of us will pass muster. You’re new, and I’m way too old to have any records.”  
“Oh.” Lee’s face split in a broad grin. “So, we’re going as guests?”  
“Yes. I managed to steal two invitations from a couple nephews of gangsters vacationing here in the United States.”  
“When did you do that?”  
“I have a life outside of you. It might show up on the evening news, if Cain, Star and Click don’t do anything interesting with their day.”  
“Fantastic. We’ll need tuxes, sweet rides, and probably a lot of money.”  
“I can help with the money bit,” said Sean.  
“How?”  
“My three abilities: I can convert coins into body mass and vice versa, I can control coins, and I’m super lucky.”  
“How lucky?”  
“Set on low, I can increase my luck for sixteen hours a day, making coincidences happen in my favor on a low average. I can turn up my luck so I’m super lucky all at once or spread it out. Higher-intensity luck doesn’t last as long as low-intensity luck.”  
“That is an oddly scientific way of looking at magic and luck.”  
Sean glared at him. “How else are we ‘sposed to look at it? We didn’t have your fancy science for years, so we had to learn our own abilities back and forward. I know you don’t like magic, and I’ll even admit that it’s easier to use, now, but don’t you dare look down on it.”  
“I’m not, I just-”  
“You complained about magic not having rules. It did have rules: they’ve just changed, now. Not like you’d know anything about that, right? You just march right in and change everything.”  
Lee stared at him with his head tilted. He was like a puppy seeing something he’d never seen before. “Sorry,” said Lee. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”  
“It’s fine, let’s just… let’s just get ready.”  
Lee nodded, then walked away. House watched him go, then turned back and stared at Sean. “What is wrong with you? You are snappish.”  
“I don’t know,” said Sean. “I don’t have memories of before three hundred or so years ago, but something keeps nagging at me. When he mentioned magic… I don’t know. Something in that haunts me.”  
“I could root around in your head, find those buried memories.”  
“Thanks, but I’d rather they come back at the most dramatic moment.”  
“What?”  
Sean groaned. “You really don’t get sarcasm, do you?”  
“Oh, what makes you say that?”  
“You’re just enjoying making this awkward, aren’t you?”  
House smirked.  
“Fine. I don’t want you rooting in my head. Whatever those memories are, they’re mine, and I want to discover them on my own.”  
House nodded. “Fair enough.” She motioned. “If you will follow me, I’ll show you the tuxedo you’ll be wearing. How are you going to supply us with money?”  
“Well, when I said I could transform my body weight into coins and back again, it’s not just limited to quarters and nickels.” Sean held up a coin. “This is an 1804 Silver Dollar, class 1. It was actually minted in 1834 as a mix-up, and since then the set is easily worth over a million dollars per coin. If we had time, I’d set it up for action: two of the coins sold for over three million dollars. However, I suspect we don’t have time?”  
“Not really. The party is tonight.”  
“Holy shit! How are we supposed to move that kind of currency in a day?!”  
“Calm down. You’re at a party with international gangsters, remember? More than a few of them are carrying a lot of cash and are willing to get at a coin like that. That will enable you and Lee to blend in, at least as much as you can, as normal, rich gamblers. The tuxedos I can prepare, easily, from materials from the outside.”  
“And the car?”  
“The car?” she grinned. “The car… heh.” She chuckled, started laughing, then cackled like a witch with her hands flung to her sides. “Ah, yes! The car! The car! We’ll go get the car!”  
‘Lee,’ thought Sean, ‘I’m a little scared.’  
‘Me too, buddy. Me too.’

Sean and Lee, looking very dapper in their tuxedos, sat in silence in the limousine currently being driven by Zhanna. Both of them were staring at him through his rear-view mirror, listening to him talk.  
“I had no idea you guys would ask me to do my real job,” said Zhanna. “I only got this recently. I’ve been driving a few rich people around, but I never thought I’d use my car in Singapore. Do you mind if I put this on my resumé?”  
“It’s fine,” said Sean. “But… I mean… how did you get this job in the first place?”  
“Well, that’s the funny thing, right? I finished my driving test recently, and I got a license, and one of the people at the DMV watched my drive, and said I was so careful yet fast they wanted to hire me on the spot. I didn’t bother to tell them it was my enhanced reflexes, and I got the job. It’s been going pretty good: you meet a whole lot of interesting people.”  
“Who hired you?” Lee asked. “What company?”  
“Oh, it’s a subsidiary of Wayne Enterprises. I already did my research.”  
“Of course, it is. Are you at least getting paid well?”  
“Fantastically well. Thirty dollars an hour plus a safe driving bonus if my clients felt I drove safely enough. I get the feeling they want to keep my around for some reason.”  
“For some reason, yeah.” Lee stared at the window in silence.  
“Is Wayne Enterprises bad?” asked Sean.  
“No, but I really can’t tell you anymore without telling you a superhero’s greatest secrets.”  
“We already know Bruce Wayne works with Batman,” said Zhanna. “He announced a while ago that his company works to supply gadgets to Batman. You think he’s even closer than that?”  
“Again, not gonna say.”  
“You’re no fun.”  
“Secrets of the universe, Zhanna. A lot of people would be peeved, at a minimum, if I just started blabbing about what I know. You don’t even want to know about the Miracle Machine.”  
“I kinda do.”  
“It doesn’t exist anymore, so it doesn’t matter.”  
“Doesn’t exist… what?”  
“Time travel. And I think I’ve affected the timeline so that future events don’t come to pass.”  
“Ominous,” said Sean. “What was the future going to look like?”  
“A thousand years in the future, there’s an intergalactic organization of superheroes called the Legion of Superheroes. They recruit a young Superman and Supergirl into their ranks, and they stop bad guys and stuff. It seems they don’t exist anymore, though.”  
“…we go through some routinely scary shit, with you around.”  
“We sure do.” Lee titled his head. “Sorry, guys, I got an incoming call. Would you please go in?”  
Sean nodded, and the car drew to a stop at the entrance to the Marina Bay Sands hotel. The valet parking was an area of huge buildings, and guests in every level of glamor and glitz possible were walking in. Most every woman had furs, and most every man had gold buttons and cufflinks. The Marina Sands Hotel towered over Sean, the glass gleaming in the setting sunlight. A valet stood nearby, a carefully controlled grin on his face that showed he was very friendly and practiced being so often.  
“May I take your car, sir?” he asked.  
“We already have a driver,” said Sean, “she’ll park the car.”  
“Of course. If you like, you may wait here while your bodyguard finishes what he’s doing. A waiter shall be along shortly to get you some drinks.”  
“…thanks.” It took all Sean had not to grin like a maniac. Apparently, Lee was his bodyguard.  
True to their word, within a few minutes Sean had a glass of champagne in his hand that was worth more than the car they rode in. Lee got out while Sean was sipping it and straightened his tux. He looked uncomfortable in the tux, but it improved his looks a fair bit more than anything else he usually wore, and that was saying something. Sean took a sip of his champagne. Ah, he shouldn’t so hard on the kid. Give him a break, for once. It’s not like he’d never been given a…  
Damned memories. Giving him emotions that he couldn’t deal with.  
“What’s up?” asked Lee. “Why haven’t you gone inside?”  
“I was waiting for my bodyguard.”  
“I’m not…!” He paused. “Is that what they think I am?”  
“Yep.”  
He stared into space for a moment with an insulted expression on his face, and then shrugged. “Eh. That could work.”  
“You’re not mad?”  
“Oh, I’m pissed. I’m just saving it for later, when those two show up.” Lee started walking inside, and Sean followed after.  
“Because that’s healthy.”  
“Says the guy who cut off his own arm.”  
“Hey!” said Sean, raising his hands in protest, “I can grow them back!”  
“Yeah, about that: how?”  
“I bought a new one.”  
“…what?”  
“I can convert coins to body mass. I can also shift where they go.”  
“Oh, duh. You just made a new arm.”  
“Precisely. It’s as simple as exchanging a twenty-dollar bill for two thousand pennies.”  
“So, does that mean you could add arms and legs? Maybe an extra eyeball? What about another set of lungs, or a second heart?”  
“I… hadn’t thought of that.”  
“Well, you should. There’s a whole host of potential uses for your power, if you only experiment with it.” Lee paused for a moment as they walked. “Say, what defines a ‘coin’ for you?”  
“A small round thing that’s represents money.”  
“That’s actually really broad, and not entirely correct. For instance, on the island of Yap, they use these giant, car-sized stones as currency, which are disc-shaped and, therefore, coins. For another, there are about a dozen coins out there that have a diameter of over a foot. And even poker chips could count as coins, if you think about it.”  
“They don’t have any value of their own, though.”  
“Sure they do. They allow you to buy snacks inside a limited space, and, if you think about it, coins work the same way. How much is a 200 peso coin in America?”  
“Nothing, unless you’re at an exchange bank.”  
“Which means it loses all value. Poker chips work the same way. They lose value when you leave the building, but they represent a value inside the building.”  
Sean nodded. “I see. Do you just… think about how powers work?”  
“Of course. Haven’t you heard me singing recently? I’ve managed to hit notes I wouldn’t have been able to before I got my power, because my vocal chords can stretch beyond their normal breaking point. If Hirohiko Araki has taught me anything, it’s that the more creative you are with your powers, the stronger you’ll be.”  
“Who?”  
“Nobody important, at the moment. He’s just…” Lee stopped and gaped. Sean stopped and stared, because for him to gape would be inconceivable.  
The room was all gold walls and red carpets, and was four stories tall. Dozens, if not hundreds, of poker tables lined the first floor, and every floor above was like a ring, twenty feet tall, each like a balcony looking down to the center of the first ring. The sound of slot machines and decks shuffling and roulette tables filled the air, and the smells of cocktails and freshly-grilled meat wafted to the new guests. The center of the bottommost floor had been cleared of game tables to make room for buffet tables, where a number of even more glamorously-dressed individuals were eating, drinking and laughing uproariously. Presumably, the center of the party.  
After exchanging the coin for money (a LOT of money) Sean and Lee joined the party, splitting off to find either gangster they were looking for.  
‘I’ve got the guy from Russia in my sights,’ said Sean. ‘He’s currently playing Texas Hold-Em.’  
‘I’ve found the Japanese guy,’ said Lee. ‘He’s chatting up a woman who’s clearly not interested.’  
‘If you can tell, then she’s REALLY not interested.’  
‘Hardy flipping har. Can you challenge your guy to a poker game?’  
‘What will that do? He’s going to be assassinated anyway. I might as well spend the time looking for his killer.’  
‘That is a better idea. Do that.’  
Sean turned and almost walked into an older man in a tux. He had white hair and an eyepatch over one eye. “Pardon me,” said Sean, and then walked past him. There were some stairs leading up to the next level, and if Sean got up there, he might get a vantage so he could see anyone getting close to… what were those footsteps?  
Lee slammed into the older gentleman with the eyepatch, knocking them through the champagne table and dumping the water container on both of them. Before the old man could get up, Lee was grabbing a champagne bottle and smashing it across his face.  
Sean grabbed Lee and pulled him away. “What’re you thinking?!”  
“That’s Slade Wilson! That’s Deathstroke!”  
“What, that old guy?”  
A gunshot to Lee’s forehead and Sean’s ribs knocked the wind out of them. Sean collapsed, instinctively reaching for the roll of pennies in his coat pocket to heal his wound. The old man with the patch was staring at them, a gun in his hand.  
Without another word, Deathstroke turned the gun on the Russian mobster and shot him in the head. Then he started running.  
“That’s not too good,” said Sean.  
“Not so much,” Lee replied. “I’m going after Deathstroke. You keep an eye out for KGBeast.”  
“That’s fine. Yeah, just leave me alone with the soviet assassin.”  
“Believe me,” said Lee, leaping after Deathstroke, “he’s less dangerous.”  
Sean heard a gunshot report and turned to find the Japanese man with half his head blown out the front of his face. A man with a shaved head, a scar along one temple that disrupted his hairline and the largest, bushiest mustache Sean had ever seen, was standing with a gun. He was wearing a tux. He and Sean made eye-contact briefly, and then he raised his gun to shoot Sean.  
Sean flipped a poker table nearby and ducked behind it. Several more reports went off, and then people really started screaming. Sean heard thunks from behind the wood of the table, and he was immensely pleased they made their poker tables of such stern stuff.  
“Come out!” said a voice with a very thick Russian accent. “Come out, little American!”  
“That’s an insult to Saxons everywhere!” Sean yelled back. Saxon? Was he Saxon? He’d yelled it on instinct. “And your mother’s a whore!”  
“How dare you insult my mother?!” There was a ping, and then a live grenade landed to Sean’s left.  
“Oh, shi-” Sean turned his arm into a mass of coins, and swarmed them around the grenade. The coins expanded suddenly and then contracted, a tail of smoke rising from the sphere. A wave of dizziness hit Sean. He could turn parts of himself into one or two coins, but this many caused his head to spin, and his breath to catch. Probably shouldn’t create a large number of coins at one time.  
Sean forced the coins to return to his arm, and then peeked around the edge of his table. His head was pounding from having his arm back, but he should be able to focus on the fight.  
A gun was pointed at his face.  
The mustachioed man was at the other end of the gun. “Stand up. Slowly.”  
Sean did so.  
“Who are you, and why are you taking my kill?”  
“…because we’re trying to kill him?”  
“Your friend is not doing a good job of it. Neither are you.” He cocked the hammer back.  
A “f’tang” sound came from behind his head.  
KGBeast fell to the ground, felled by the mighty weapon of the frying pan. Sean took a moment to launch a coin through his head, and then looked at the user of the frying pan.  
A youngish man, with black hair and sharp eyes. He carried the frying pan with a stance that said he knew how to use it, but he was grinning, which meant he probably wasn’t a threat. Probably. “It’s about time someone put a bullet in that guy’s head. I’m Jason.”  
“Sean. Are you a superhero?”  
“You could say that.” Jason nodded. “Your friend’s going after Slade?”  
“He is.”  
“He’s in over his head.” Jason started running the direction Lee had gone. Sean followed.  
“I think he’s aware.”  
“Are you in?”  
“Certainly. He owns the house I live in.”  
“You’re only saving him because he’s your landlord? Most people would let them die.”  
“That’s cold, mate. And my friend can’t die.”  
“You mean he’s too tenacious?”  
“I mean he’s completely invulnerable. He literally can’t die.”  
“That’s pretty cool.” Jason vaulted a table without losing pace or breath. “Say, would your friend happen to be named ‘Lee’?”  
“No, his name’s Jiminy Cricket.”  
“Well then, Pinocchio, I’ll have to tell him thanks for making an excellent Disney movie.”  
“It was really the whale that brought it together.”  
“Nah, man, the island was where it’s at! That really spooked me as a kid.”  
A section of the wall exploded, and part of the floor above crumbled.  
“Good thing everyone’s run away,” Sean remarked.  
“No kidding.”  
Lee came flying through the wall, smashing through tables and ramming his head through a rack of champagne. “…ow,” came his voice.  
“Sounds like he’s got an RPG,” said Jason. “Get hidden. We’ll use Jiminy as bait.”  
Sean and Jason ran to either side of Lee, ducking behind tables and bits of rubble. Sean was able to get a good vantage of where Lee was at, from Lee’s left, and glancing across to Lee’s right showed Jason was also behind a knocked-over table. Sean almost held his breath, but opted for slow, even breaths. In, and out. Repeat.  
A few footfalls. Sean looked to Jason, who held up his hand. Military signal. It meant to wait. A pretty generic signal, but the fact Sean knew it well was odd to him.  
The footfalls drew closer, and then Deathstroke stepped into Sean’s line of sight. At some point, he’d acquired his armor, which included a full-face mask, split down the middle into orange on the left and black on the right. The right side of the mask, the same side as his eyepatch, had no eyehole.  
He wore a variety of military gear, from the standard-issue boots to the bandolier of bullets across his chest, which was decked in black combat armor. His gloves were orange and thick, but they looked maneuverable enough to fire the grenade launcher in his hands, or any of the staggering number of weapons on his back or at his sides.  
The grenade launcher was currently pointed at Lee, who was groggily sitting up from his back. “Lee.”  
“Slade.”  
“So you know my name. She said you might.”  
“She who? Did that gangster have a wife?”  
“You really have no clue what’s going on. Talia al Ghul hired me to get you. An assassination attempt was the perfect bait.”  
“Wait, she’s coming after me?” A goofy grin spread on Lee’s face. “Oh, boy. I’m famous.”  
“Why are you smiling?”  
“Do you know what kind of prestige I’ve gained? Talia ah Ghul hates my guts! She’s, like, an upper B-level villain! Oh, man! This is so c-”  
The grenade launcher went off, and the grenade was small enough to go into Lee’s mouth and explode. He lay back, unmoving.  
“I know where you are,” said Slade. “You, behind the third table from me, and you, next to the crystal fountain. Your friend may be invulnerable, but a grenade to the mouth still hurts. If you don’t want to see him vomiting, then come out with your hands up.”  
Neither Sean nor Jason moved.  
“Fine.” Slade reloaded and fired again.  
Lee screamed, and his scream was cut short by ralphing up everything he had. Which wasn’t much, but it sounded horrible when bits of it clinked like metal.  
“I’m not joking. Come out.”  
Sean stood up. Jason gave him the kill signal, but Sean didn’t care. “I’m over here,” he said. “I’m alone.”  
“Sure you are.” Slade didn’t even bother to turn his gaze. “You’re not included in the contract.” Without even a moment’s warning, he drew a gun from a side holster and aimed it at Sean, pulling the trigger.  
Sean didn’t have much time to react. He transformed the front of his chest into coins, and deflected the bullet. He didn’t have a lot of fat left over from that, so any more coins he could make would have to come from muscle or bone.  
The loss of so much fat in such a short amount of time left Sean dizzy. He dropped to his knees, still keeping his hands above his head. He had no time to react as Slade pulled the trigger again.  
A sharp pained sensation hit Sean in the chest, and then he-  
***  
Sean’s been shot.  
Sean’s bleeding on the floor.  
He’s going to die, and it’ll be my fault.  
I didn’t even know what I was doing before I leaped at Deathstroke with a roar. Either I moved fast enough that he didn’t see me coming, or he couldn’t pull the trigger in time, because I was able to get around his grenade launcher and wrap my fingers around his throat.  
I didn’t have any time or any rational thought to do anything more. I just squeezed until I could hear bones snapping, and then I squeezed harder and I heard something pop. Red blood spurted from his neck, and his breath rushed from his throat.  
A gun was pointed at my face.  
It went off a second later, and I was blinded by the muzzle flare for a moment, and my eye hurt. I back off, which allowed Deathstroke to stand up and pump a round of shotgun pellets into my stomach. I wasn’t feeling too great after getting shot in the mouth with a grenade launcher, but luckily my stomach was empty, because it would definitely be emptied after that.  
The figure who was with Sean ran out from behind his cover, leaping almost twenty feet from where he’d been and slamming into Deathstroke like a human wrecking ball. The two of them tussled for a moment, allowing me to see just how well-trained the two of them were, but the newcomer had the upper hand and soon had Deathstroke on the ground, unconscious, with a really cool-looking block, parry and uppercut.  
I took a moment to stomp his head in, and then shoot him in the face with several guns, and then blow up his body with several grenades. Then I watched the body for a few seconds to make sure he wasn’t coming back. I was breathing heavily, my hands were shaking, and I was sweating like a pig.  
“Pretty harsh, there,” said the newcomer. “You have beef with this guy?”  
“Not really,” I replied. “Healing factor. He could still come back from that. We’ll need to incinerate the body.”  
“I’ll take care of that. Your friend is still alive.”  
“He is?!” I rushed over to Sean’s body. “Sean, are you okay?!”  
“He’s unconscious,” said the newcomer. “The bullet got him pretty good. He needs immediate medical attention.”  
“Where’s the nearest swinging door?”  
“Where? Well, there’s a frame on the floor, but-”  
I ran over to the door. It was still in its frame, which was indeed on the floor, but it should still work. I yanked it open, revealing House and her library on the other side, and leaped in.  
“What did you do to him?!” asked House.  
“I’m sorry! He was shot!”  
“Obviously!” Sean’s motionless body flew from my arms and hovered in the air. Triage and surgical equipment appeared out of thin air, and House folded her legs under her as she floated over Sean with a pair of tweezers. “I need you to leave, now. He’ll be okay, but this is going to be delicate.”  
I stepped away, back through the door and into the confusing scene of altered gravity. “The door slammed behind me, and then the only sound was my labored breathing.  
“You… alright?” asked the stranger.  
“I almost got my friend killed,” I said. I slumped to my knees. “I got him killed.” I sat for a moment, staring at the door, at the bloodstain on the floor, and Deathstroke’s unconscious body. Then I got up. I couldn’t think about that right now. “Do you know a place we could incinerate this body?”  
“I said I would take care of that.”  
“I need to do something. I can’t just sit here and wallow.”  
“Fine.” The stranger paused for a few seconds. “There’s a garbage incinerator not too far from here. If you’re willing to steal a car, we could make it there in ten minutes.”  
“I have a car.”  
***  
Zhanna was humming a little tune when the knock came at her door. She rolled down the window to find Lee and a stranger, each carrying a body. “Despite the length of this car,” she said, “we are not, in fact, a hearse.”  
“Oh, good,” said the stranger. “I was worried for a minute there you were weird. Would you help me with this corpse?”  
“I’m not getting my suit dirty. And you’re not getting my interior dirty! Get a tarp first!”  
“Can do!” The stranger deposited his body beside the car and ran off.  
“Who is that?” asked Zhanna, once the stranger was out of earshot.  
“I don’t know,” Lee replied, “though, granted, someone like him is bound to be a superhero.”  
“How can you NOT know who he is? I thought you knew everyone.”  
“Most everyone, and besides, it’s not like it’s easy for me to recognize people. Comics are drawn so most features are simplified, and it’s very possible for several people to look alike. Seeing them in real life, seeing their unique features… it’s difficult to pick them out.”  
Zhanna stared at me for a moment. “You’re not okay, are you?”  
“Not especially,” I replied. “Sean’s been shot.”  
“What?!” She gripped her wheel so hard it started bending. “You killed the guy, right?”  
“Yeah, he’s the corpse on the ground.”  
“How could you let Sean get shot?!”  
“I don’t know! He was trying to protect me! I…” I slumped against the car. “Slade was firing grenades into my mouth. It… it really hurt. Sean came out to get him to stop, and Slade shot him.” I wiped my hands on my face. “I don’t know what to do. I’ve read a lot about the guilt leaders felt when their subordinates are hurt, but it’s different when it happens to you. I keep running over the scenario over and over in my head, trying to think of anything I could’ve done differently, and all I’m seeing is that I wasn’t strong enough. I’m not strong enough to protect my friends.”  
Zhanna stared at me. She said nothing.  
“I’ll figure this out,” I said. “I have to. I don’t want anyone else to die.”  
The stranger showed up then, carrying a large blue tarp with him. “They just leave these things lying around,” he said. “It’s like they expect construction sites to be robbed.”  
“You’re a saint,” I said.  
“Thanks.”  
“By the way, I didn’t catch your name.”  
“Didn’t drop it. It’s Jason.”  
“And your last name?”  
“Todd.”  
Holy shit. “Holy shit.”  
“What?” He stared at me. “Wait… he told me about you. You know who I am?”  
“I do. Holy shit. Sorry. Huge fan. I especially like the way you…” I glanced over at Zhanna, who was staring at me with all the sarcasm and confusion she could stuff into one raised eyebrow. “…never mind. Suffice to say I do know who you are, but I like your work and I’m not trying to stop you.”  
“Good to know,” said Jason. Any humor in his mannerisms had vanished, and he was staring at me with the patented Bat-family glare. “You know everything?”  
“The warehouse,” I said, “and the crowbar.”  
His eye twitched, but otherwise nothing in his expression changed. It must be traumatic, I think, to be beaten to death with a crowbar and then brought back to life, especially if your assailant is the Joker, but it seemed to me Jason Todd had come out the better for it. If he wasn’t trying to attack me now.  
“I’m sorry that happened to you. It was cruel, and a tragedy. I fully agree that your father should have killed the man who killed you.”  
“So I’ve seen,” he said.  
“By the way,” I added, trying to lighten the mood, “has anyone ever told you that you look and sound like Jensen Ackles?”  
He stared at me a moment longer, and then grinned. “On occasion. Usually when they’re trying to sweettalk me out of killing them.”  
“People will say anything to-”  
The car honked, and I jumped. Zhanna was staring at the two of us. “Lee, get your boyfriend in the car and let’s get going. I’m not getting paid for this.”  
“Right, sorry. Jason, would you mind?”  
“Not at all. I may have to take leave of you shortly. We have a bird on our tail.”  
“Bird?” I frowned. “What kind of bird?”  
I heard a soft thump, and turned just in time to see a baton coming at my face. Jason intercepted it an inch from my forehead.  
“Nice catch,” I said, my voice several octaves higher than normal.  
“Thanks.”  
We turned to the man who’d thrown the baton. Black costume, no cape, with a black domino mask and a blue emblem of a bird on his chest. He carried two batons at his side, and a utility belt around his waist told me he had a lot more to offer. Despite all that, there was one thing I noticed first.  
He was goddamned GORGEOUS.  
I’ve heard that Dick Grayson, AKA Nightwing was the most handsomest man in the entirety of the DC universe, but seeing him up close was enough to shock me to stillness. Chiseled chin, sharp, brooding eyes, and a strong nose that wasn’t overwhelming. He matched almost perfectly to da Vinci’s concept of a perfect man, and I noticed I was staring only when Jason said, “Hello, brother.”  
“I’m not your brother.” Even his voice was hot. “Turn over the bodies. Given time, they’ll regenerate.”  
“How about I don’t?” Jason pulled a knife from his boot, and a gun from his suit. “Lee, get out of here. Make sure the body burns.”  
“Can do.” I shoved the bodies into the tarp and tumbled the whole bundle into the limo. “Zhanna, drive!”  
The car pulled away, and the last thing I saw was Jason and Nightwing staring each other down.  
***  
Dick was staring at him with that oh-so familiar determined expression on his face. “Does he know?”  
“He does,” Jason replied. “As much as Bruce suspected he knew.”  
“About you, and…?”  
“Yeah. He knows how the Joker killed me. More importantly, through inference he knows I was brought back to life.”  
“Which would explain how he knew about R’as when he killed the league.” Dick stared at Jason. “You don’t have to do this.”  
“Yes, I do. This is the first time we’ve seen someone doing what needs to be done without crossing the line. He’s the only one with the guts to kill the Joker. Even Bruce couldn’t do what needed to be done.”  
“I thought we were over this.”  
“Then you don’t understand it. We just killed Deathstroke and the KGBeast. How many more people were they going to kill? How many have we saved?”  
“And, in the process, you’ve become just another murder.”  
“Not just another murderer. A killer of killers. And, I figure if we kill enough killers, the number gets a lot smaller.”  
“Jason, please…!”  
“No. We’re done with this conversation.” Jason pointed his knife at Dick. “I’m out. Whatever happens, I’m with that guy, and I know there’ll be more. Leave this alone, Dick, and your conscience remains clear.”  
“I can’t do that.”  
“Fine.”  
For a moment, the two of them stood still, and then Dick was right in Jaosn’s face.  
The first baton swing was aimed at Jason’s face, which he ducked and parried. The second baton, however, was the one with the greater strength, which he didn’t see coming before it knocked the gun out of his hand.  
Fine. Just need to make do. Jason spun his arm around Dick’s arm, forcing it into a hold that made him drop the baton. Just need to reach out and-  
Something hit him in the face.  
Jason felt his lip split from the blow, and fell to the ground. Dick was leaning over him, holding the baton at his neck with both hands.  
Jason grunted. “You’re going to beat me like he did?”  
The pressure on his neck lessened. Jason kicked Dick in the stomach, and when Dick was reeling back, Jason kicked the dropped baton into his hand, and smashed it in Dick’s face.  
Dick fell to the ground, and Jason took a moment to hit him again before taking his baton and slamming it into Dick’s head, leaving him out cold.  
Jason stood still, breathing heavily, and then dropped his batons, picking up his gun as he walked away. Bruce had always taught them to end a fight as quickly as possible, and yet that felt easy. Too easy. Dick was out cold, but Jason knew that wouldn’t be the end.  
Not by a long shot.  
***  
Sean came to groggily, his vision blurry and his mind in a fog. He could tell he was in a hospital room, it was dark, lit only by the light of the fluorescent bulbs in the ceiling. As his vision and mind cleared, he could start to pick out the light wood trims on the doors and the polished white steel of the bed, and Lee’s sleeping figure in the chair next to him.  
The poor guy was quite passed out, covered in blood and soot, his head leaning back with his mouth opened. He wasn’t snoring, which was a small mercy in itself.  
Sean felt sore on his chest. He reached up and felt a series of stiches on his chest, probably where he’d been shot.  
He’d been shot.  
The memories of the fight came rushing back to him. Sean had been shot. He’d barely survived by an extremely clever use of coins. He could’ve died.  
His hands started shaking.  
The door slammed open, and House stood there, wearing a doctor’s uniform with a stethoscope, of all things. “What’s wrong?! Your heart spiked!”  
“What’s going on?!” asked Lee. He was wide awake and wielding the chair he’d been sitting in as a baseball bat.  
“I’m fine!” Sean said. “I just had a bad dream!” He glanced between the two of them. “Actually, you were both there.”  
“I don’t want to know,” said Lee, sitting down.  
“Neither me,” said House. She approached Sean. “How are you feeling?”  
“Groggy. And hungry.”  
“That’s only natural. You’ve been asleep for three days,”  
“Three days…? Is everything okay?”  
“Better than okay. A human would’ve died from the shock of what you went through. The fact you’re already talking proves you’re hardier than we give you credit for.”  
“Gee whiz, I’m flattered,” said Sean. “Is everyone else okay?”  
“Cain’s been burned,” said Lee. “She’s killed two extremely dangerous villains, but she’s badly hurt. House says she’ll be fine, but it’s one more of our number who’s injured.”  
Sean stared at him. “Actually, we need to talk about that. In private.” He turned his gaze to House.  
“Oh, don’t mind me,” said House, as she walked out, “just gonna leave this place that’s literally built out of me… where I can hear everything… no, don’t worry about anything.”  
Sean waited until the door was shut, and spoke. “I remembered a little of who I am.”  
Lee grinned. “Sean, that’s…!”  
“I was an assassin.” That shut him up. “I killed a lot of people. I think… I think they were demons, for the most part. I would hunt them down and slit their neck in their sleep. This leads me to one conclusion: I can’t fight the way you do.”  
Lee was quiet.  
“I’m trained to kill someone without giving them a shot at fighting back. I’ve got these… memories, of tracking someone and watching their moves, predicting the way they’ll act and react, their strengths and weaknesses, and then slaughtering them when they were at their weakest. I don’t fight fair, and it wouldn’t be fair of me to say I can fight like you. I’m not a pacifist, not like Michael, but…”  
“I get it,” said Lee. “I understand. We’ll do things your way, when we’re on your team. We can take it slow, learn to assassinate people.”  
“I’m not going to slow us up.”  
“I’m not worried about that. I can’t just cast you aside. You’re a valuable member of this team, and whatever you have to offer, we’ll take.” Lee’s expression got serious. “Actually, I’ve got to say something to you that I told everyone else.”  
Sean frowned. “You’re serious about something, aren’t you?”  
“Deadly. We’re not strong enough.”  
“Not strong…? Lee, you’re completely invulnerable. Zhanna is capable of throwing cars. Hell, I’m tough enough to survive getting shot.”  
“Is that enough to fight Superman?”  
“…you’re serious. Fight the big man?”  
“Fight Kryptonians. We need to be strong enough to kill General Zod, if the need gets down to it.”  
“General Zod?! The guy that fought Superman to a standstill?! The man capable of throwing PLANETS around?! We’re going to fight that guy?”  
“If we need to,” said Lee. “There’s too much out there that’s too strong for us right now. We need to take whatever power we can, and get stronger. I’ve got a few ideas for how we could do it, but I’d like to find other options.”  
“What’s your primary method?”  
“I’m not going to tell you, just yet. I’m not sure if it’ll even work out, right now. Just remember to keep an eye out for anything that could make us capable of killing gods.”  
Sean’s frown deepened. “This is a dangerous road you’re walking down. And I would know: I’ve been to every hell.”  
“I know, and that’s impressive. I just don’t see any other way of killing everyone who’s a threat. Maybe there will be, but for right now… well, I don’t need to give the whole speech again. Rest assured that I won’t do anything unless we have no other options, or we’ve discussed it as a team.”  
“Bloody wonderful,” said Sean. “But, I guess I see your point. I have some friends I could talk to, as well.”  
“Great. Let me know what you find out.” Lee stood up, and started to walk out, but stopped in the doorway. “And… I’m sorry you got shot. I…”  
“Listen, mate: I’ve been shot a few times. No matter how careful you are when planning, something’s always going to get messed up, and you’ll end up improvising. I’ll survive. And next time, if I don’t survive, it won’t be your fault. Be sure of that.”  
Lee smiled. “Thanks.”  
***  
Lady Talia was displeased.  
To say that she was merely unhappy would be an understatement. She was unhappy when something didn’t go quite exactly to plan. She wasn’t merely ill-pleased, either. She was ill-pleased when something didn’t succeed because she hadn’t known about one distinct factor, or a host of smaller factors. She wasn’t even angry, which is when her plans succeeded despite her own or her people’s blundering mistakes.  
No, she was displeased. And when she was displeased, she entered an icy calm that held no trace of the fiery anger she had boiling inside. She spoke so levelly that you could practically build a shelf off of her words, and her posture never changed from one of mild interest. Sitting behind her desk, her computer in front of her, and every sword, spear, knife, and gun on the three walls surrounding behind and to either side of Talia being perfectly organized and arranged, you would think her the definition of tranquility.  
It was the way she was crushing her ceramic coffee cup that told you she was using every ounce of self-control she had in order to not throttle the messenger. The only reason she didn’t was the fact the messenger was Nyssa Raatko, her father’s other daughter and sworn enemy of the League of Assassins.  
Nyssa had almost died in a car bomb created by two overeager members of the League, but luckily had survived just enough in order for Talia to reprogram her mind, forcing her to be an obedient servant of the League of Assassins. It gave Talia great joy to watch the woman she hated walking around submissively, forced to deliver messages and be the brunt of the abuse new assassins would heap on her. To kill her now would defeat the entire purpose of it.  
“I suppose…” said Talia, “that Deathstroke at least managed to kill one of Lee’s companions?”  
“No, ma’am,” said Nyssa in a voice that drawled like a cow’s, “both he and KGBeast were killed, neither one managing to completely kill their targets.”  
Talia sighed, and massaged her bleeding palm absently. It came as no surprise to her that ceramic was sharp, having slit several throats with it on occasion, but it was just so fucking difficult to not shatter it when you heard bad news. Bad news like your plan, being brilliant in execution and forethought, completely shattered by Lee and his companion being far stronger than thought possible. A simple plan: let their monstrous House hear about the assassination attempts, and drag Lee to the forefront, or one of his compatriots. They knew the time, they knew the place, and they knew the people. Yet, somehow, that had all gone to waste. Imbeciles. Her father was right to distance himself from the commoners. They just couldn’t do anything right.  
“Nyssa,” said Talia. “Be a dear, and pass along this message: open season on Lee and any of his companions. Whoever brings me his head earns fifty million American dollars, and an extra ten million for every companion. Is that difficult?”  
“No, ma’am,” said Nyssa.  
“Good. You may go.”  
Nyssa bowed, and left Talia’s office. It was with great irritation that Talia noticed the bow wasn’t quite as deep as she would like. Clearly, she would have to speak with the programmers, and get them to adjust that. Not so easy, now that those two had killed the Hatter. It was likely they were connected with Lee, as well.  
Talia sighed, and sat at the desk, her hand tightly clenched. She was calm. She was serene. She was the head of the demon, now. She wouldn’t be bound by petty emotions.  
She was just, oh so very much, looking forward to gutting the rat that killed her father.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's that. I finished this on the second day of my vacation.  
> In other news, a glitch has caused the glide animation in my Excel to stop working, and that makes me sad. I can't enable it at all. I am experiencing infinite despair.


	15. Wolf in the Foxhole, Part 1

The bad news came as soon as she woke up.  
An explosion rocked the House, and Cain’s room rippled and churned like water that had been disturbed. The bed melted, dropping her to the ground. Her arm hurt, briefly, but the bandages surrounding her arm held firm. She lit her ring from her left hand, and a cyan aura surrounded her body. “What’s going on?” she called.  
“No idea!” Sean replied. He was grimacing from walking around, but he seemed fine, besides his bullet wound. “Did you see that? Is House okay?”  
“I’m fine,” said House, appearing from nowhere.  
“Fine?!” Cain demanded. “That’s not fine! You’re covered in blood!”  
“Most of it isn’t mine,” she replied.  
“MOST?!”  
“Yeah, they hit me in the shoulder, but I don’t have any organs there.” House wobbled, and her rooms wavered again. “Why did that happen?”  
“Shoulder wounds are a big deal!” said Sean. “Lay down, now!”  
House collapsed into a bed, face-down. “Is this enough?”  
Sean stepped over her, staring at the hole in her right shoulder. “Roll over.” He was silent for a few more moments. “Good, there’s two holes, which means the bullet is out of your body. Cain, I can treat her, but I need you to find out if anyone is still out there.”  
“Can do. Lock the door.”  
Cain left, her ring glowing and covering her in powered armor. Whatever was here was using guns, and she wanted to be prepared for that.  
“The ring protects you, you know.”  
“Hello, Star. Where have you been?”  
“I was in the TV. It feels nice to be bathed in static.”  
“I’ll have to keep that in mind when it’s my turn. Do you know who’s here?”  
“Some men with guns.”  
“Obviously. Where are they from? Any accents or other languages? Have they mentioned names?”  
“Gosh, do you want me to keep track of everything? Why don’t you ask that guy?”  
Cain spun, and saw a man in breaching gear. He had a semi-automatic something-or-other pointed at her.  
She blasted him through the chest with a pole made of glowing light. He slumped over and fell to the ground, bleeding profusely.  
“Jameson down!” someone yelled. Bullets started whizzing through the air, and the plaster behind Cain exploded. She heard several ‘pings’ as the bullets bounced off her armor, and a few more as they bounced off her aura.  
She glanced around. About a half-dozen more, each with semi-automatic weapons, breaching armor, and face-concealing helmets. Not likely to be much of a threat, all things considered.  
“Activate implants!”  
“Cain,” said Star, “there’s something going on in their brains that’s not normal activity. Something-”  
She didn’t have to wait long to find out. The six soldiers jerked and twitched like they were having a seizure, and then they expanded, their clothing shredding around them until it was little more than stylized shorts and t-shirts. Their heads broke their helmets, and their faces changed from ones of surprise and fear to rage and savagery.  
These might be a problem.  
One of them blurred as he ran up to her and punted her through a wall. Since there wasn’t anything on the other side of the wall, reality distorted around her and Cain found herself deposited in a city of some kind. The letters on the signs bespoke Korean or Chinese, although it was a little difficult to tell when there were six angry Hulks coming at her.  
Well, not really, but it was hard to think.  
Behind the roided-out soldiers was a tear in space-time. Imagine, if you will, a piece of fabric that has a large hole in it, with tatters hanging off it and bits of string coming undone. Now, replace the fabric with the image of a city, and take the hole and imagine it’s a doorway into House. That’s about what Cain was seeing, except it wasn’t string it was… you know, that’s too confusing. Let’s just get back to the fighting.  
“What’s going on with that?” Cain flew into the air to get a better grasp of the situation. “I didn’t think those guys were that powerful!”  
“They’re not,” said Star. “The barriers of reality are weak in House’s domain. They were just strong enough to force you out. Look, it’s closing now.”  
The hole in space-time did seem to be getting smaller, and the hulking soldiers were getting further away from it, their attention drawn to Cain.  
“We have to disable them without civilians getting involved,” said Cain. “Can you make sure they get out of here?”  
“Sure thing. You take those guys on.” Star zipped away in a flash of light, leaving Cain to deal with the hulking soldiers.  
Lee had mentioned a few times the Incredible Hulk, but he had stressed the Hulk was in an entirely different multiverse, meaning these weren’t gamma-irradiated super-soldiers. She couldn’t think of what else they could be, though, especially since they were acting the same way, smashing and raging and leaping-  
Speaking of.  
Cain zipped to the side in the air, narrowly dodging the meaty hands of the soldier leaping past her. She activated her ring’s energy, creating an enormous tennis racket with razor-sharp strings, and swung it at the soldier.  
He smashed against the side of the racket, and bits of blood and flesh dripped off, but he was otherwise fine and just as pissed off as before. He used the tennis racket as a leaping position and flew at Cain again.  
Cain created a spear of light, and threw it at the soldier.  
She didn’t see if it’d hit or not, because a solder slammed into her from the side and threw her into the ground.  
She was constantly amazed by the capacity of the ring to protect her from danger, because she found herself imbedded in the asphalt about a foot. She dug herself out with her ring, and flew around another soldier that was running at her. It was with a little worry that she noticed Lee was hanging onto the soldier’s neck.  
“What are you doing?!” asked Cain.  
“Helping!” he lied. The soldier gripped Lee by the head and threw him into the ground. “Ow. How are you” a stomp to the face interrupted his sentence. When the foot came back up, he finished “doing out here?”  
Cain created a giant hand and swatted the giant soldier away from Lee. Lee stood up and staggered. “You okay?”  
“Just dandy. I didn’t know someone else had the Blockbuster formula.”  
“What?”  
“Oh, it’s a super-soldier formula that does… that.” Lee gestured to the six soldiers around them. “Anyone who’s willing to take that formula is willing to put innocent lives at risk to do so. They lose most of their ability to process and think in favor of just being really, really mad.”  
“Like the Hulk.”  
“Kinda, but this world’s version of it.”  
“Right. Weaknesses?”  
“Sufficient force. Beat them until they die.”  
“Can do.” Cain made a giant spike and slammed it through a Blockbuster’s head.  
The spike penetrated through the Blockbuster’s skull and slammed into the ground. When it vanished, the Blockbuster slumped over in a daze, and the others, too stunned to move, merely stared between Cain and the downed soldier.  
Lee growled. “I wish I could do more. My super-strength isn’t strong enough to take on these guys.”  
“Get back to House,” said Cain. “If you’re out of your league, then you’ll only slow me down.”  
Lee nodded. “I don’t like it, but I understand. Cover me.” He started running to the hole in space-time, which was gradually closing.  
One of the Blockbusters noticed Lee and roared as Lee dashed to the hole. The Blockbuster started running, but was stopped when Cain created a baseball bat and slammed it onto the Blockbuster’s head, followed by the chest and stomach.  
The Blockbuster fell unconscious, and then Cain didn’t have any time to think. A third Blockbuster was coming at her, and the other three were running away, smashing everything in their path.  
Cain didn’t bother to create definable objects. General shapes were enough for her: a spike, a block, a ball, anything she could think of to put space between her and the Blockbuster. She soon spotted an opening, and created a pressured stamp that stamped a hole through the Blockbuster’s chest and out the other side, about where its heart would be.  
After that, she took to the skies and glanced around for anything, any trace of where the other three went. Every second she waited risked more civilians getting hurt. Luckily, the city was mostly empty, which meant fewer people were likely to get involved.  
“Star!” She called. “Do you see them?”  
Star zipped up to Cain as a burst of sparkly light. “I’ve got them. Follow me!”  
Cain flew after Star, the wind whipping around her. She wasn’t sure how fast she was flying, but it was only a few seconds before she caught up to the Blockbuster tearing through a building and a car.  
Cain made a giant hand and slammed the Blockbuster into the ground. When she saw the Blockbuster was still twitching, she slammed the soldier several more times before he popped like a balloon and splattered blood everywhere.  
From there, a trip across the city carried her to an open park, where the second-to-last Blockbuster was tearing up trees and swing them around. Several people were nearby, running away screaming. Cain heard only snippets of the conversation, but to her it sounded like Korean.  
She couldn’t do anything reckless with this Blockbuster, as anything that missed would hit the civilians. Cain created first several rows of walls around Blockbuster, and then expanded them quickly enough to give a sense of urgency, but slowly enough that the civilians watching saw the wall coming and got out of the way. When she’d cleared a roughly twenty-foot square around the Blockbuster, Cain brought the walls back together with crushing force.  
Or she would have, if the Blockbuster hadn’t caught the walls. It held them still for a moment, and then looked at Cain with menace.  
The walls disintegrated. Lee had said something about will powering the constructs, but-  
Cain was disoriented by a blow to the head that sent her sailing through several buildings and into the ground. The ring was good, but not that good: she had a cut lip and a black eye, and if her ribs were any indication she would be feeling this tomorrow morning, if she felt anything tomorrow morning.  
The two Blockbusters appeared a moment later, leaping across buildings with abandon. They slammed down on either side of her, and then wasted no time beating her down.  
It was so hard to focus, with the both of them attacking her, and the pounding of their fists didn’t help. It was like a drum beat, banging loudly in her ears, boom, boom, boom. Any construct she created to use against one Blockbuster was destroyed by the other, and nothing was helping. Nothing was working. She was starting to hurt from these attacks, and if nothing happened she was about to black out.  
Powered by will: what did that mean? She wanted to get out of this situation and she was determined to live. That wasn’t enough, though: will was about focusing, even when things got hard, even when you couldn’t see straight, and pushing through. Push through the pain, the anger, the fear, and focus. Create… force your path out. Force your freedom.  
Cain, with every bit of will she could muster, created a dome of light and expanded it rapidly. It pushed the two Blockbusters off of her, flinging them to either side of the street and smashing into the buildings.  
She was panting. Her ring arm was probably broken, her left leg was dislocated, and there were probably a host of other injuries she wasn’t aware of yet. It hurt, but she pushed. She pushed back the pain, the fear, even the anger, and forced herself to a state of near-calm, until only determination remained.  
She’d heard she could create as many constructs as she wanted. Now was the time to find out.  
Two hands popped out of her ring, grabbing each Blockbuster in a crushing grip. It was harder to focus on both hands at once, like trying to type one-handed on two different keyboards. The Blockbusters were straining against the hands holding them. Focus. Determination.  
Cain forced the two giant hands to close tighter, and even holding the Blockbusters from several feet in the air, she could hear bones creaking and straining, and the Blockbusters groaning changed from anger to pain. Even that wasn’t enough, and with a scream of rage, she pushed all her will into killing them.  
The two hands clenched completely, shredding the Blockbusters into bits and splattering the street with blood and gore. Several civilians who still happened to be nearby vomited at the sight, and Cain would’ve been lying if she hadn’t felt queasy herself.  
Her breathing gradually slowed, and then she pushed herself into the air through her will. “Star, how’s the damage?”  
“Destructive but contained. If we spend a couple hours here, we could probably fix up everything they damaged.”  
“I’d rather not make a target of myself,” Cain replied. “Let’s get out of here. Can you point me back to the tear?”  
“It’s over this way. Come on.”

The tear had almost closed by the time Cain arrived. House was standing in the gable, holding two sections of space-time apart with her bare hands. She looked tired, her face covered in sweat, her arm covered in blood.  
“Get in,” she said. When Cain entered, House slammed the two edges together and slumped over. “Finally. Took you long enough.”  
“I was fighting super-soldiers.”  
“No excuses.” House staggered over to a chair that hadn’t been there before. “Gods, I’m tired. It’s been a while since I’ve been shot.”  
“How many times has that happened?”  
“Too many times!” said Sean, marching straight into the library. “And besides that, you’re out of bed! You need to sleep!”  
“And the hole needed to stay open,” said House. “We’re at an impasse.”  
“No, we’re not. You will go straight to bed right now, or-”  
The chair under House turned into a bed. “Better?”  
“I’m still upset.” Sean sighed. “Cain, come here.”  
“What?”  
“I’m not being forward. You’ve got several injuries, and you’re currently walking off an adrenaline rush. You’re going to collapse if you keep going like that.”  
“I’ve got her,” said House. “I can still move my insides, at least.”  
Bandages and cast parts appeared out of thin air and moved on their own to cover Cain with enough wrapping to ask if her brain should’ve been pulled through her nose by this point. House also gave her some pain meds that helped her think clearly after a few minutes.  
“Is Lee in here?”  
“He came back in,” said House. “There were a few magicians to take care of. Zhanna and he took them out.”  
There were some thumps.  
“Correction. One of them is still alive.”  
The wall crumbled as Lee barreled through the wall with the remnants of a figure in a robe. He took a second to crush the man’s head, and then stood up. “They’re dead,” he said with little emotion. Cain was startled by his coldness at first, but then she got a good look at her eyes, and a haunting stare slipped out before Lee looked away and his expression returned to normal. “Zhanna will be here in a moment. Are we all accounted for?”  
“Yes,” said House. “Michael is in the basement with Click. I’m communicating with him now – he’ll be up in a moment.”  
“We’re here,” said Michael. He and Click entered the room.  
“What’s going on?” asked Click.  
“What were you two doing in the basement?” asked Lee.  
“That’s private,” said Michael. “We asked what was going on.”  
“Someone attacked us,” said House. “They had magicians with them to locate me and get past my defenses, and they had trained soldiers to take us out. I don’t think they realize our scope of power or else they would have sent something besides Blockbusters.”  
“You beat Blockbuster?” asked Sean, surprised.  
“Not me,” Lee said. “She did.”  
“With the magic ring?”  
“You’ll find the magic ring, properly applied, is a Superman-level power.”  
“Back on track,” said House, “this means someone is after us. I can’t help but feel that, maybe, we ticked some people off when we killed Slade and Anatoli.”  
“That would make sense,” said Lee. He stroke his chin, forgetting his hands were covered in blood and giving himself a rusty goatee. “Both of them have had connections or dealings with a lot of the underworld, although to use magic and technology would require…” He frowned. “It’s probably the League of Assassins.”  
“That would make the most sense.”  
“Didn’t you kill them?” asked Sean.  
“You can’t kill an idea,” Lee replied. “And I only blew up the mountain they were staying in. They’ve got membership worldwide.”  
“Not to mention Talia is still alive,” said Michael. “In most scenarios, children are rarely happy if you kill their parents.”  
“Are they ever?” asked Click.  
“It was sarcasm. Regardless, this means we have to deal with the League, now.”  
“Not just the League,” said Lee. “We also have to deal with the Blockbuster formula.”  
“Why is that?” asked Sean. “Most things are available on the black market.”  
“Not super formulas. You haven’t seen the comics from my perspective. The villains are extremely protective of their formulas. Bane even once teamed up with the heroes to stop his venom formula from getting to the public (who, speaking of, we should probably off in the future). Mark Desmond, the guy that invented the stuff, doesn’t want it getting out, and Roland Desmond, his criminally-minded brother who abuses the formula, doesn’t want anyone else to have it. That means it was stolen, or leaked, or something else is going on.”  
“So, we have to go to his city to find out.” Star folded her arms. “Where’s he at?”  
“Blüdhaven. It’s an old city about a half hour outside of Gotham.”  
“That’s not good,” said Michael. “He knows me, and he knows Zhanna.”  
“He who?” asked Star.  
“Batman,” said Cain. “One of the Justice League.”  
“The one with issues,” said House. “He doesn’t like Michael, and he doesn’t like Zhanna.”  
“Not to mention,” said Lee, “his old partner, Nightwing, makes his rounds in Blüdhaven. They’re actually still in close contact.”  
“Which means he knows about me,” said Michael. “If we’re going to investigate the Desmond brothers, we’ll need to send someone else.”  
“Or we could make your notoriety work for you,” said House. “If Batman, and therefore Nightwing, are on the lookout for you, they won’t be on the lookout for someone else, like Cain.”  
“It makes sense,” said Star. “We did kill several Blockbusters just now. We could take anything Batman’s enemies could throw at us.”  
“Not likely.” said Lee. Was he defending Batman? “But you’re right. Cain is sufficiently strong.”  
“So it’s settled,” said House. “We send Michael and Cain to Blüdhaven. Lee, I take it you want to deal with the League business?”  
“We’ll need to find them,” said Lee. “Before that, though, I have a little business to take care of in Keystone City, which I’ll need Click for.”  
“Can do!” she said with a cheerful little salute.  
“That leaves Zhanna and me to guard the base,” said Sean. “Are you sure you don’t want me to take on assassins?”  
“You’re still wounded,” Lee replied. “If it wasn’t for Cain’s ring protecting her, I wouldn’t send her yet. Besides that, while you think like the assassins, the assassins also think like you. I need to think differently, and Click’s good for that in several different ways. I need you to protect House to make sure we don’t get attacked again.”  
“You want me to just figure out how to defend from magical sorcerers and infiltration tactics?” He paused for a moment. “Well, you’d need some anti-magic wards over the doors, at the very least, and probably reinforced steel… it’ll be a challenge, but I’m in.”  
“Great! And you’ll have Zhanna to help you test the defenses.”  
“Watch it, fanboy.”  
“Can I stay, too?”  
All eyes turned to Star. “Really?” asked Cain.  
“I just… I want to get out. I don’t like being a ghost anymore.”  
“Your body is almost ready,” said House. “You’ll not be able to leave, but at least you’ll feel things.”  
“That’s fine.”  
“All settled, then,” said Lee. “If you have any questions, ask any time. Otherwise, get moving. House, how soon can we get Star into a body?”  
“We can go there now.” She started to sit up.  
“No!” said Sean. “No standing! Not in your condition!”  
“Fine,” she grumbled, morphing her bed into a wheelchair. “Happy?”  
“Enough.”

Lee, Cain, House and Sean, followed by Star’s floating specter, entered a room Cain hadn’t seen before. It was unsettling: the corners of the room didn’t quite meet in the right spots, and it seemed like there were five walls of ninety degrees each. In the center was a gurney with a sheet over it.  
“What’s wrong with this room?” asked Lee.  
“It’s a temporary space,” said House. “I didn’t need to design it properly, so I just made a space. You’ll notice the color of the walls is also off.”  
“Thanks. I hate it.”  
“Is my body under there?” asked Star. She seemed small, now. “Is that it?”  
“That’s it,” said House, looking for all her apparent youthfulness like a grumpy old lady in her wheelchair. “You want to try it out, or do you want to clothe it first?”  
“Please do so.”  
House waved her hand. “It’s ready.”  
“Are you?” asked Cain.  
Star hovered quietly over the sheet. “I’m… I don’t know…” She stared at it. “I’m so close, and yet… I feel like it could be taken away again.”  
“Again?”  
Star nodded. “I feel… I feel like I had a body, once. And I lost it… somehow. I don’t know. It’s strange. I’m worried it’s not real, that I’ll just wake up and it’ll be gone.”  
Cain nodded. “Then take it. If it’s not meant to be, rip off the band-aid now.”  
Star smirked. “Not good at pep talks?”  
“Not too good at lying.”  
“Okay.” Star stared for a moment longer. “What do I do?”  
“Just lower yourself into the cranium,” said House, “and you’ll be fine.”  
Star floated above the covered cadaver for a moment, and then did as House instructed. Her feet narrowed into a string as she neared its head, and then the rest of her body followed suit, her head last. For a moment, she was silent. And then the body shot upward and threw the blanket off.  
There was a moment of silence.  
“It’s… pink,” said Lee finally.  
Star stared at her new body. She had long, yellow hair pulled back in a simple tail, and wore jeans with a t-shirt. However, as Lee had commented, she was very pink: her skin tone was a sugar gum pink, which looked almost shiny in the dim light.  
“Why pink?” asked Sean.  
“Would you have me just pick a race?! I’ve been on the internet! That’s a trap I wasn’t willing to set off.” House grinned. “I decided to give her something original, with the option of changing it later.”  
“Fascinating,” said Cain. “Star, how are you-”  
Star had leaped from the table and was hugging Cain. Cain was immediately uncomfortable.  
“It’s back!” Star said. “Oh, gods, it’s back! I’m back! I can feel you! I can breathe! I can smell you! You smell awful! It’s so wonderful to have a body again!”  
Cain nodded, and pattered Star on the back. “There, there.”  
“I could… I could do so many things! Things you wouldn’t let me do!”  
“That’s potentially ominous,” said Lee.  
“Like…” Star raised her arm and sniffed her armpit. “I have no odor, yet. Bother.” She frowned, and then slapped her face. “Pain! Glorious, wonderful pain!”  
“Um…” Lee glanced at the stunned (and, in House’s case, smug) expressions around him. “Star, are you-”  
He was interrupted when Star kissed him.  
It was so shocking that Cain’s ring sputtered, and Sean’s mouth dropped. House merely raised an eyebrow and smirked.  
Star released Lee. “Thank you! You are a terrible kisser!” She ran off, presumably to try something else.  
“Is she going to be okay?” asked Sean. He caught a glance of Lee’s expression which looked like shell-shock. “Are you going to be okay?”  
“I’ve never kissed anyone before,” Lee replied.  
“I repeat my question: are you going to be okay?”  
“Yeah, I’m just gonna go to my room and cry for a while.”  
Sean clapped him on the shoulder. “Rejection’s tough, buddy.”  
Cain watched the doorway, and Star bounding all over the place looking for things to try. “It’s good to see her so happy,” she said. “She’s been miserable in her light form. Hopefully, we’ll get some time for her outside House.”  
“You’re welcome, by the way!” House shouted down her halls.  
***  
Blackgate Prison was as foreboding in person as its description on the internet. People often talked about the Gothic architecture, which they were understating. They mentioned the high-security environment, which was accurate. And they mentioned, of course, that everyone inside was a complete and utter psychopath.  
That was accurate for those behind bars and those guarding them.  
The guard they met at the gate wore armor that would normally be worn by anti-riot police and SWAT agents. You couldn’t even see his face behind the riot gear as he stared at the obviously demonic Michael and the less-than tidy Cain. It wasn’t Cain’s fault she didn’t like makeup, or hairstyling, or shampoo, or most anti-perspirant agents. Her hair looked fairly tidy today. It had barely any tangles.  
“Purpose of visit?”  
“Here to see a prisoner,” said Michael. “Mark Desmond.”  
“Not a lot of people here to see him,” said the guard. He glanced at Michael’s horns. “Especially brimstone feeders like you.”  
Michael sighed. “Are you going to keep me out?”  
“Nah, you’re fine. Batman warned us about you.”  
“I fail to see the reasoning.”  
“It’s because of the bat that we have to keep these insects guarded all the time! Personally, I think we’d do a lot better just to feed them all Venom and have them tear each other apart, but Warden Bolton won’t let us do that.”  
“My condolences,” said Cain. “Can we go in now?”  
“Just a moment,” said the guard. “You’ll need to wear one of these watches.” He held up two silver mechanical clasps in either hand. “They dampen any and all powers inside the facility. Just a precaution, you understand.”  
“Of course.” Michael and Cain offered their wrists, which were clasped.  
“Second, this.” The guard pulled out a long, silver knife. “This is treated silver, and it’s laced with several dozen spells that detect evil while leaving good behind. It’ll kill any evil creature with a touch.”  
“Do you want me to touch it?” asked Michael. He got his reply when the guard stabbed him.  
For a moment, nothing happened. Then nothing continued to happen.  
“That was rude,” said Michael.  
The guard withdrew the knife. “Had to check. You understand.”  
“Of course,” said Michael. His smile said he did, his eyes said he didn’t.  
“Alright: now, the metal detector.”

Ten minutes of extremely careful probing and a great deal of embarrassment and anger later, Cain and Michael entered the visiting room. It was a gray block of a room with one wall being covered in thick glass, with those old-fashioned telephones to enable talking. There was only one chair per booth, so Michael offered it to Cain and stood back to watch the rest of the room.  
A man was soon brought in, wearing the orange jumpsuit of a prisoner. He was a man with graying hair and glasses. His long hair was pulled back in a tail, and his eyes were clear and sharp.  
Cain picked up the phone, and the man on the other end did as well. “So, you’re Cain. I’ve heard of enough people called Cain to ignore it. I’m Mark, but I think you know that.”  
“I do.”  
“Can we get down to business? I was in the middle of a good book.”  
“Who have you handed your formula out to in the last few months?”  
He scoffed at that. “No, thank you. I don’t hand out the formula to ANYONE. My brother, perhaps, is the only person who might’ve gotten ahold of it, but he’s not a chemist: he wouldn’t be able to recreate it without someone like me.”  
“What if someone had the formulaic compound?”  
“Perhaps, but it takes dedicated machinery to generate it. They’d need a lot of funding.” He looked down his nose at her. “Pardon me for saying so, but you’ve not made me any likelier to give you the compound from these questions.”  
“I don’t want it.”  
“Doubtful.”  
“But I knew someone who had it.”  
“…Did you, now?”  
“Six soldiers, probably working for the League of Assassins. They’re dead, now.”  
“The League…? How would they get my formula? I’m locked up in here, and my brother wouldn’t even know!”  
Cain frowned.  
“You know something, don’t you?”  
“It…” Cain hesitated.  
“Say it.”  
“…The League is well-known for using unscrupulous means to get what they want. They’ve also managed to brainwash several different superheroes. My guess is, it wouldn’t have been hard to find your brother, and get enough information to figure out the next direction.”  
Mark’s expression didn’t change. He merely leaned forward until his face was in his hand and sighed. “Dammit. I should’ve seen this coming. Roland wouldn’t stop. He… he just couldn’t…” A broken sob broke his voice. “I’m sorry. You probably don’t have a lot of time. There’s not a lot they could do with the formula: it uses incredibly unstable chemicals that have to be mixed in the right amounts at the right time to…” he rubbed his forehead. “…to… it’s so hard to think…” The flesh on his body started to ripple  
The last thought Cain had before he transformed fully into Bockbuster was ‘Well, that’s not good’.

Cain awoke with a splitting headache. Her vision was cloudy red, and for a moment she worried something had been damaged. As her vision cleared, however, she noticed her vision was red because the lights around her were red. Michael sat to the side, with a piece iron bar jutting from his chest. Rubble lay scattered about, from bits of concrete to still shards to broken safety glass.  
Cain leaned forward, groaning. “Ow. My head.”  
“Are you okay?”  
“My head really hurts. It’s like a midget with a sledgehammer.”  
Michael nodded. “My condolences.”  
Cain pushed herself to her feet, and willed her ring to light. It flickered, and then the bracelet on her hand glowed and her ring died. “I can’t… my powers are gone.”  
“As are mine,” said Michael. “I cannot create fire, or find weaknesses, and the only language I can speak are the ones I spoke before.”  
“How are you still talking with a bar in your chest?”  
“I don’t know,” he replied. “It seems it’s just an inherent trait of demons. Would you mind pulling this out?”  
“Oh, sure.” Cain walked over to Michael. Placing both hands on the bar and one boot on Michael’s chest, she pulled, slowly at first, but when Michael told her she was taking too long she leaned back and yanked the bar out.  
Michael roared in pain and then collapsed to his side. “Thank you.”  
“No problem.” Cain swung the bar a few times. “Hey, this is nice. I’ll use this.”  
“I’m glad my pain was useful.”  
“Are you being a smartass?”  
“I wasn’t trying to be.”  
“Then shut up. This is stressful enough.”  
“…my apologies.”  
Cain groaned and brandished her metal pipe. The exit for the visitors was completely blocked off by debris, so that left getting through the main body of the prison as their route of exit, which was just as much fun as going the normal way. There was static and sparking and some metal just pinging along, like a coin or something.  
“Sean, I swear,” said Cain, “if that’s you, then…!”  
A figure stepped into the room. He was clothed in prisoner’s orange, but it’d been marred so that half of it, the left half, was bedraggled and torn, while the other half was pristine and clean. His face was marked the same way: the right side of his face, while a bit overgrown with stubble, was clean. The left half was marred by horrid burn scars, erasing any trace of hair, and twisting that half of his face into a manic, unstable grin.  
“Who’s this?” asked Cain.  
“Two-face,” Michael replied.  
“I see that.”  
“That’s his name.”  
“That’s unfortunate.”  
Two-face drew a gun from his pocket, and calmly flipped a coin in his other hand. “I know you,” he said. “Not heroes, but not like us. Not choosers of your own destiny.” He flipped the coin again. “In this world, you’re either one… or the other.” He turned his coin to show Michael and Cain. On one side was a picture of Lady Liberty. On the other side was the same picture, heavily scratched and scarred until you almost couldn’t see the picture. “You can’t walk the edge without falling.”  
There was a moment of silence.  
“Is that allegorical?” asked Michael.  
“Yes, dumbass, it’s allegorical.” Two-face flipped the coin once more. “Now, pick a side. Good, you survive. Bad… you don’t.” He flipped the coin. “Choose.”  
“You don’t have to do this,” said Michael. “You can walk away from this.”  
“Kid, you have no idea how many times I’ve heard that. Make your call.”  
“I’m much older than you are. It can get better. You just have to walk away. Be done with this life. You can choose to be better.”  
Two-face stared at Michael, and something softened in his normal eye. His other eye, though, grew harder. “Call.”  
“Edge,” said Cain.  
Two-face shrugged. “So be it.” And he flipped the coin.  
While he was distracted, Cain ran behind Michael, around him, and smacked Two-face in his bad face with her bar.  
There was a thunk like metal hitting meat, and then Two-face fell to the ground. Cain took a moment to impale him with her bar, and then picked up his gun. “You’ll need this.”  
“Pacifist,” said Michael, “and I am not altogether happy with your choice to kill him.”  
“You know what you signed up for.”  
“What I wanted was to save people. I’ve done my research: his name was Harvey Dent. He was a broken, beaten man. He could’ve been saved.”  
“You want to save monsters?” Cain got right up in Michael’s face. “We’re here to kill them. That’s it.”  
“No,” said Michael, “YOU’RE here to kill them.” He stepped through the rubble and out into the main yard. “I will keep trying to find anyone who’s willing to surrender. If I can save them from themselves, I will also save them from you.”  
“They don’t deserve to be saved,” said Cain. “If they’re in here, there’s a reason for that. They don’t deserve our pity.”  
“Lee saved Harley Quinn.”  
“And she hates him. Fat lot of good that does us.”  
“At least nobody died,” he said, his eyes smoldering, “and she’s not killing anyone.”  
Cain snarled. “You’re making this more difficult than it has to be.”  
Michael stared at her, smoke pouring from his sockets, and then he closed his eyes. “We are going to disagree. I will stay with you, but we will not fight about this now.”  
“Screw you,” Cain muttered. She brandished her bar and stepped into the cafeteria. It was in shambles. Tables and benches lay scattered, and the only exits available led to the prison cells. There was an exit that led to the yard, but it was being guarded by several prison guards in full riot gear, carrying several large weapons. Cain didn’t know guns, but they looked dangerous.  
The guns were raised as soon as the duo was spotted. “Stay where you are,” came an order.  
Cain raised her hands. “We’re guests, not inmates!”  
“We’re aware. We’re just not keen on anyone right now.”  
“Can you at least let us out?”  
“No can do. Prison is on lockdown. Nothing gets in or out until the warden gives the all-clear.”  
“And who is the warden?”  
“Warden Lyle Bolton.”  
‘Is that someone I should know?’ Cain asked through the telepathic link.  
‘Yep. Lock-Up. Bad dude. I don’t know why he’s working at the prison, though: last I heard, he was a criminal. It’s probably Amanda Waller.’  
‘How do you know that?’  
‘It’s ALWAYS Amanda Waller.’  
“Is Amanda Waller behind this?”  
“That’s classified,” the guard shot back.  
“Probably, yes,” said Michael.  
“Oh, when did you get so sarcastic?”  
“If you’re willing to focus, there’s a way to get through this.” Michael raised his voice. “Where is the warden? Perhaps if we found him, lockdown could be canceled?”  
“Sure.”  
“He sounds unsure.” Cain remarked.  
“I am capable of reading human emotions.” Michael glanced deeper into the prison. “This is not likely to go well for us. We should find the warden.”  
“Really? Does it seem that obvious?”  
“Your attitude is not making it any easier to work together.”  
“You’re not making it easy!”  
Michael sighed. “Very well. Let us proceed deeper into the very dangerous prison full of very dangerous people and keep bickering like this.”  
“Or,” said a voice.  
Cain didn’t wait for another second. She lashed out with her bar, which was stopped by a man with black hair, thick eyebrows, and hands covered in frost. He held the bar with one hand, and bits of ice were gathering on it.  
“Leonard Snart,” he said, his voice never changing pitch. “Captain Cold.”  
“Cain,” she replied, “and I’m going to kick your ass.”  
“Long name, but you do you.” Snart let go of the bar. “Now, we’re going deeper into the prison.”  
“‘We’?”  
“Yes. I’m going to help you.”  
“Why?”  
“Because I have rules, the prisoners who’re rioting don’t, and I don’t like them on my turf. Besides, they have the rest of my gang, apart from Mick.”  
“How can we trust you?”  
“You can’t. I’m a Rogue. That’s what we do. Our goals just happen to coincide, so we should work together while we have the time.”  
“And where is your friend? Where is ‘Mick’?”  
The answer came when a section of concrete wall melted, and a man with a flamethrower flew through it. He cracked his head against the concrete, and slumped to the ground.  
“Mick!” yelled Snart. It was a bizarre yell, like raising your voice when you’re bored but not changing your tone at all. “Did you kill him?”  
A man stepped through the melted hole, his hands ablaze, his skin looking like cracked magma. He had no hair on either his face or his head. “He stole my schtick,” he said. “I’m the only pyromaniac around here.”  
“Ah, yes, because Firefly was such a threat.”  
“Nobody’s a fire guy but me.” Mick’s eyes opened wide. “Nobody.”  
“Classic Mick. Now, demon man and Going-To-Kick-Your-Ass, you ready to go?”  
“One moment,” said Cain. ‘Lee, what can you tell me about Leonard Snart and his Rogues?’  
‘Oh, you’ve met Captain Cold! He’s pretty cool… I mean, he’s pretty chill… he’s an alright guy. Does he have superpowers?’  
‘Yes.’  
‘Okay… how are you meeting him?’  
‘He wants to help us with a prison riot.’  
‘Okay. If he says he’ll help you, he’ll do exactly as he says. However, I wouldn’t trust him.’  
‘I thought you said he was alright?’  
‘I need to stop thinking in fictional terms… I meant, for a criminal, he’s alright. He and his team have an understanding with the Flash. They don’t kill people, they only commit crimes. They’ve often worked together to stop invading armies or disasters and the like. However, he and his team are in this for themselves. If you get the chance, just arrest them.’  
‘That’s unlikely.’  
‘What was th-’  
It was with some relief that Cain found out she could cut off any telepathic communiques. Lee’s voice in her head shut off, allowing her to consider the matter clearly. “Alright, Snart,” she said. “You have a deal. We’ll work together to get the warden.”  
“Of course,” said Snart. “Happy to be working with you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was 19 pages long. I thought to make it into a two-parter to avoid large entries. If I find the second part is too short for a full chapter, I'll update this one.  
> You know what's really difficult to do? Prison layout research. It's like they don't want those plans online or something.


	16. Wolf In the Foxhole, Part 2

Heading deeper into the prison proved to be difficult. Not because there was a lot of resistance, but because so much of the prison was destroyed. Whoever was destroying it was doing their work, and yet there were remarkably few bodies around.  
“Why aren’t there more bodies?” asked Cain.  
“Kind’ve a bitchy way to ask that,” Mick replied.  
“Simple, really,” said Snart. “The prison education system started having better features.”  
“Features?” asked Michael. “That sounds ominous.”  
“You’re not really hip on prisons, are you? Ever since Brainiac’s ship was left hovering in the sky with the keys in the ignition, it’s been open season on whatever they could make from it. Most prisons don’t need to have prisoners in them in order to function. You see those wrist dampeners? You can install them on people to prevent them from stealing, prevent you from doing things you’d otherwise like to do. Allows people to live on the outside without breaking the law.” Snart grinned. “That means you only have the worst people in prisons, now.”  
Cain scoffed. “All that’s been changed? Brainiac was killed a year ago!”  
“A lot of people have been pushing for it, anyway,” said Snart. “The recent technological jump just allowed them to push it through.”  
“What happened with Blockbuster?” asked Cain. “Why did he swell up like that?”  
“I have no idea,” said Snart. “I’m just going to take my colleagues and get out of here.”  
“So, someone’s behind this,” said Cain. “Someone working for the League of Assassins.”  
“League? No, thank you,” said Snart. “You can leave me out of that. I didn’t even want to come to this prison at all.”  
“Wait, so…” Cain stared at Snart, and then took in his clothes which, while dusty, were clearly not prison clothes. “…you weren’t a prisoner here.”  
“Wow, no wonder you’re in here,” said Snart. “If you’re that intelligent, you’re a menace out there.”  
“And you’re breaking your friends out of here. What does that say about you?”  
“That I have friends.” Snart paused. “Stand back.” He slipped behind a concrete pillar, and then the machine gun fire started.  
“Why do they have machine guns!”  
“I assume they were given them,” said Snart.  
“Riddle me this!” came a voice from the end of the mess hall.  
“Oh, shit,” said Mick. “It’s the Question.”  
“The Riddler!”  
“Yeah, the Question’s a different guy,” said Snart.  
“When is a cell door NOT like a cell door?”  
“Can you break my wrist dampener?” asked Cain.  
“Do you want to die?” asked Snart. “It will kill you if it breaks.”  
“Okay, then. No need to be snappish.”  
Michael’s eyebrows climbed up his face, but he said nothing.  
“How do we deal with him?” asked Mick. “Snart, what’s the plan?”  
“When I become immune to bullets, I’ll deal with things like this normally.”  
“How would you do that?” asked Michael.  
“I would walk up there and take away the gun.”  
Michael nodded. “Alright, then.” Then he stepped into the hail of gunfire. The bullet ripped into his chest and shredded his clothing, but he stayed standing. “It is as I suspected. The bullets hurt but cannot damage me.”  
“When did you learn that?!” demanded Cain.  
“Earlier, when I was stabbed.” Michael stared at the end of the hallway, silent for a few moments. “Edward Nigma: please surrender.”  
“Never!”  
“I think you would find it wise to do so. I will not attack you, but the same cannot be said of my companions.”  
Michael kept closing the distance, his arms extended out, in a calm, reassuring tone of voice. Cain couldn’t hear what he said after a few minutes, so she elected to hunker down and clutch at her bar.  
“So…” said Snart. “Your friend is bulletproof.”  
“He’s not the only one,” said Cain. “I have another friend who’s also bullet… you know, I think most of us are.”  
“You? Really?”  
Cain showed Snart the ring on her finger, and also used the opportunity to give him the finger. “The ring’s deactivated, genius.”  
“So, it’s the ring? Interesting…” Snart paused. “Is it the same thing for Green Lantern? Does that mean you guys have actual lanterns?”  
“Yes. I replaced my heart with it.”  
“Like Iron Man,” said Mick.  
“Except no armor,” said Snart.  
“Or money.”  
“Or fame.”  
“Or broads.”  
“Or access to high-security secrets.”  
“That means you’re like Iron Man,” said Mick, “but lame.”  
“Yes,” said Cain, “thanks. That’s what I need right now.”  
Footsteps approached, and Michael appeared. “The Riddler has agreed to cease his aggressions,” he said. He held up the machine gun. “He is unarmed.”  
Riddler poked his head around the corner. “Please don’t hurt me.”  
“They will not.” Michael said it while staring directly at Cain.  
“No,” said Cain through grit teeth, “we won’t.”  
“Tell them what you told me.”  
Riddler cleared his throat, his composure gradually returning while he spoke. “There’s some madman who’s gathering all the prisoners together. In the cell block, I think. He’s lining up those he hates and forcing several of us who can’t go fight him to fight for him. Fortunately, he didn’t think I was much of a threat, and he merely attached me to guard duty.”  
“You’re not a threat,” said Mick.  
“Maybe to one who focuses on muscles of mind, such as yourself, but a keen brain is the key to defeating any opponent, which I don’t expect an oafish brute like you to understand.”  
Mick stared at the shorter, skinnier man for a few seconds. “I’m gonna kill him.”  
“Not yet,” said Snart.  
“Look, who’s doing this?” demanded Cain. “Can you tell us that?”  
Riddler frowned. “I haven’t seen his face, and he has a voice disrupter. He’s wearing SWAT armor, but that’s common in this place. I don’t know who he is.”  
“Figure it out with your big brain,” said Mick.  
“I can’t pull it out of my ass!”  
“Right, there’s not enough room in there with your head.”  
“If you may,” said Michael, stepping between the steaming Mick and stammering (presumably with fury) Riddler, “this is not beneficial. Cease these arguments at once. It’s likely we’ll be attacked soon, and we should begin to work together if we want to get out of this.”  
A concrete slab smashed through the column Michael was standing next to, and impaled him through the chest.  
“Ow,” he said. “Who…?”  
A metal hand smashed through the concrete, grabbing Michael and throwing him clear across the room. The owner of the hand, a muscular man covered in metal, turned his attention to the other four.  
“Riddler? Shoulda known you’d turn.”  
“It’s not what it looks like!” Riddler squeaked.  
“It’s exactly what it looks like,” said Snart.  
The metal man nodded. “Well, Snart, sorry. You’ve done good work, but I’m afraid you have to die.”  
“I won’t.”  
A large chunk of concrete fell out of the ceiling, smashing the head of the metal thug and rendering him either very unconscious or a little dead.  
“How’d that happen?” asked Riddler.  
Cain pointed. “If you look there, you’ll notice Snart froze the concrete, and then Mick heated it until it expanded, cracking the concrete and dropping a chunk from the ceiling.”  
“A simple trick,” said Snart, “at least in theory. You wouldn’t believe how long it took Mick to learn it.”  
“Is that a comment about my intelligence?”  
“It was, Mick.”  
“Just so you ain’t lying to me.”  
“Tell me, Riddler, who’s in the next room? What do we have to deal with?”  
“Well… the prisons are pretty well empty, but you’ve got… Barrage, Codename: Assassin, Kryptonite Man, Master Jailer, Prankster, Calendar Man, Cluemaster, Dr. Death, Maximillian Zeus and Ratcatcher, as well as a dozen other D-listers clawing for control.”  
“Great,” said Cain. “Nobody’ll miss them.”  
Snart groaned. “No killing, you psychopath.”  
“I’m not a psychopath.”  
“You’re at least crazy.”  
“You think we can go out there and afford to not use everything we have at our disposal?”  
“Honestly? Yes. We just need a plan.”  
“Screw your plan. We’re going in there now.”  
“Do you know what temperature the body freezes at?” asked Snart. “I do. Do you know how hot the body has to be before the blood boils? I do. Do you know exactly how much light is necessary to pour into an eyeball before it goes blind? I do. I study these things, and I make plans, and I win. We fight together, we go with my plan. I let you kill whoever’s behind this, and in return, you use non-lethal force.” Snart grabbed the bar, and held it out to Mick, who melted the spiked end down to a blunt clump. “Do we have a deal?”  
Cain stared at him, with her jaw set. Her ring wasn’t working, and these two had superpowers. The Riddler would be all but useless. And Michael was missing his powers, too. She clenched her fist, the tendons cracking from the pressure. Her ring glowed a minute amount, and then faded.  
“Fine,” she said. “Since we have no choice. But I’m not shaking on it.”  
“Smart,” he replied. “Shaking hands is the first thing they do to trick you. Now, huddle up.” He waited while the five of them gathered. “Now, I’ve often said that a simple objective is better than a moving target, so here’s what we need: we rescue our four companions, kill the ringleader, and subdue everyone else. Riddler, where are the hostages located?”  
“Hostages?”  
“Every inmate who didn’t escape, surrender to the guards or join the ringleader.”  
“They’re in a couple cells in the back. We have a couple assassins guarding them.”  
“Perfect: cannon fodder. Now all we need is a distraction.”  
Cain sighed. “I have one.”

“Alright, you scum! Listen up!”  
Every eye turned on her. Every two-bit thug, supervillain and caped criminal was staring at her with a mixture of curiosity, shock and, in a few cases, confused fear. The cell block, both the ground level and the second-level balcony, was full of criminals who were all intent on her. Hopefully, she’d last long enough.  
She held up her bar, which was glowing with a dark, purple light that made the shadows brighten. Apparently, you could scratch something on Michael’s horns and light it, but she hadn’t expected this effect, and neither did the inmates. “You see this?”  
The entire room stiffened.  
“This is my boom stick. I drop it, it blows up, and we all die.”  
Silence.  
“Do you think she’s serious?” asked one guy in a… good lord, was that a MOTH costume?  
“I think so,” said another. “Do you think she would really come out here with that kind of ploy?”  
“Maybe it’s a bluff?”  
Cain smirked, and loosened her grip on the bar just enough that it slid down her palm. Everyone in the room flinched.  
“Good. You’re all paying attention. Bring me your leader.”  
Everyone glanced at the back of the crowd, and then someone stepped through it. He wasn’t tall, not by a long shot, but he had shoulder pads that were big enough to fit two heads inside. He wore a blue outfit with highlights of gray, and had a ski mask pulled over his face so the only thing Cain could see of his expression was his eyes.  
“You think you have what it takes to kill me?” he asked.  
Cain stared at him. “Yep.”  
“You’re a fool. You didn’t think I wouldn’t catch you, did you?”  
“Catch me? I have no idea what you’re-”  
The leader grabbed the bar, causing everyone behind him to gasp. He was strong enough to wrench it out of Cain’s hands in an instant and slammed it against the ground.  
It rang out with a single humming note, and then went silent.  
“A trick,” said their leader. “This is a distraction!”  
Cain drew the other bar, taped to her back, and smacked it into the leader’s face. He was stunned only for a moment, which was enough time for her to slip behind him and hold the bar to his neck.  
“Nobody move!” She pressed the bar against the leader’s neck until he grunted in pain. “Now, bring me the warden before anyone gets hurt!”  
There was a moment of silence before all the prisoners burst out laughing.  
“What’s so funny?! What’re you laughing about?!”  
A blow to the stomach caused Cain to drop her pipe, and a mitt of a hand grabbing her neck distracted her from any further thoughts.  
“Idiot,” said the leader. “You came in here without any knowledge. I AM the warden! I am Lyle Bolton!” He slammed her against the concrete floor, which caused her spine to creak dangerously. “This is MY prison! Nobody breaks out without my say-so! NOBODY!”  
“There are several major oversights,” said Cain.  
“Did you really think so? I knew of the assassins using Desmond’s formula. I knew he would explode, because I gave him an injection. And I knew you would have a way to get inside the prison, thanks in no small part to these Rogues.” He stood up straight, and it was to Cain’s shame that he didn’t even bother to look at her when he turned around. “You have him?”  
Leonard Snart entered the cell block, Mick behind him, carrying Michael’s unconscious body. “He’s out,” said Snart. Mick dropped Michael gruffly on the floor. “Where’s my sister?”  
“She is at this location.” Lyle tossed a phone to Snart. “Leave now. Show up only with your fiery companion, and all three of your other partners live. If any other show up, they die.”  
Snart stared at Bolton with burning fury, and then, with a calm stare at Cain, turned and walked away.  
Cain grit her teeth and forced herself to her feet. “You bastard,” she growled. “You betrayed us.”  
“Anything for my sister,” Snart replied. “Anything.”  
And then he was gone. And Cain was alone amongst a mob of prisoners, with a hurt spine and probably a concussion, without any weapons or armor or anything she could use to fight. But she wouldn’t go down fighting. She would-  
All went black.  
***  
Cain woke up with ropes tying her to a chair. A single bare bulb hung from the ceiling by its power cord, illuminating a room with bare, wooden walls and a simple concrete floor. She was tired, her head hurt, and she was thirsty beyond all belief, and yet the only other things in this room were a door with a peeling paint job and a patch of blood on the floor. It was a rusty red color, which told her it had been there for a while.  
‘Michael? Michael, are you there?’  
A great roaring filled her head, and then screaming, and then silence. ‘…I am here.’  
‘Michael? What’s happened to you?’  
‘I don’t know. I thought… I thought I couldn’t be hurt.’ Something bitter came across the telepathic link. ‘It turns out there was a magic ward at the prison. Something preventing the innocent from being hurt. I don’t know why it protected me.’  
Cain ignored the implied self-loathing and focused. ‘Do you know where we are?’  
‘No. I woke up after you fell unconscious, but before Bolton… no, before Lock-Up activated all the collars on the prisoners and killed them all.’  
‘What? Why would he do that?’  
‘I don’t know. He’s crazy. He hit me with a gun when he saw I was awake. He’s basically human, but… he hits hard. My head hurts, and I think one of my horns is broken.’  
‘He can’t keep us here forever. I’m going to contact home base.’  
‘Okay. Talk to you soon.’  
Michael vanished from her head, and then Cain attempted to contact House.  
WHAT DO YOU WANT. I HAVE SPECIFICALLY SET UP A NETWORK THROUGH MY HEAD, SO I DON’T HAVE TO SPEAK TO ANY OF YOU.  
‘We’ve been captured.’  
‘…oh. Where are you? Let me make a door to you.’  
‘I don’t know where we are. Can’t you just make a doorway to us?’  
‘Little lady, do you know how difficult it is to just “make a door”? I have maps everywhere that I constantly reference to figure out which door to convert based on your location! I can’t just “make a door” to wherever you are!’  
‘Does that mean we’re stuck here?’  
‘Yes, you’re stuck with your ring and a fire-breathing demon. How horrible is your fate?’  
‘Our powers are being dampened. I can’t use my ring.’  
‘Wow, you’re all kinds of useless today.’  
‘As if you’re any better! You’re just going to leave us here in the hands of a madman and make sarcastic remarks.’  
‘I’m already looking for you. Look, if you can’t make a joke, you won’t be able to get through this. It’s humor that allows us to-’  
And then she was gone.  
‘House? House, are you there? Michael? Click? Zhanna? Lee, Sean? Is anyone there? Please! Star, please answer! I know you can hear me! This isn’t funny! Answer me! I don’t want to be alone!’  
This last part was screamed out loud, to no reply.  
“Please,” she whimpered. “Someone… help me.”

She wasn’t sure how long she spent in that room. The light was a constant, flickering companion, and the only way she could find to count the seconds passing was to count her heartbeats. Her ring still wasn’t working, and that cuff was still around her wrist. Her arms were securely tied to the arms of the chair, but maybe she could loosen them if she pulled hard enough. Just need to pull, and…  
Ow, ow ow. No good. That hurt too much: the rope bit into her wrists and hurt her skin. Maybe do that one later. Maybe her ring could be used if she tried harder?  
…yeah, that wasn’t cutting it. She was just holding her breath and clenching. Nothing could be helped by clenching. Put that on her gravestone and call it a day.  
So, back to counting heartbeats. One, two, three…  
She heard stomping footsteps and a door slamming. Then the door to this tiny room opened, revealing a man with broad shoulders and close-cropped black hair that was starting to grow out. He closed the door behind him, and then turned to face Cain. She didn’t recognize any of his features, but his eyes were familiar: they were the eyes of Lyle Bolton, known as Lock-Up.  
“I didn’t want to do this,” he said.  
“That’s great. I didn’t want this done.”  
“I appreciate the work you are doing. I saw the footage of you fighting the Blockbusters in East Hun Chiu. I know you killed Grodd and the Ultra-Humanite a couple months back, and judging by the company you keep, I’d say we’re on the same page when it comes to criminal scum.”  
“Except that you kidnapped me.”  
Lyle frowned. “I saw you… working so easily with the Rogues. With criminals.”  
“That didn’t stop you.”  
“I was USING them, Cain. Like the scum they were. But you and your partner were treating them as equals. And I’ve looked into your partner: I know about him and Kill Croc, and the Mad Hatter. You’re working with criminals. You’re letting them go free.”  
“Buddy, if it was up to me, I’d be killing everyone who put on a mask and robbed a bank. But we can’t do that.”  
“Can’t we? I saw your conversations. The security cameras in Blackgate are everywhere. You’re listening to Michael. Obviously, you can’t be trusted in that organization you’re in, which means someone who knows what they’re doing has to take over. So, what’ll it be? You join willingly now, or after a great deal of pain?”  
That wasn’t a lot in the options department. Cain wanted to tell Lyle to piss off, go fuck himself, or a combination of the two, but that wouldn’t leave her in any better place to stick something through his head. Maybe, though… maybe she could convince him to help her.  
“Alright,” she said. “I’ll take you there. I just need to contact someone.”  
“Telepathically?”  
“Yes.”  
“No.”  
“I’m trying to be helpful here!”  
“No, you’re not. You’re just trying to escape. I’ve seen your ilk; I know how you think.”  
“Then stop me from doing it.”  
“Are you trying to infuriate me? It won’t work. I’ve kept worse criminals than you locked up. And if you won’t tell me what I want now, you will later.” He held up a metal key. “And as long as I have this, you won’t be able to use your powers ever again.” He turned, and slammed the door shut, locking it as he did.  
Cain stared at the door, and pulled at the ropes, straining as hard as she could. But her hands were still securely fastened to the armrests, her legs to the chair’s legs. She couldn’t move her torso, as she was strapped to the chair back. Putting all that together, she’d need a knife or something sharp to cut the ropes, but her knife was still in her pocket. What else did she have to…?  
Her ring.  
It was shaped like a mining lantern, which meant that the round base had an edge to it. Not a great edge, but the wrist guard meant that she couldn’t create solid images, not that she couldn’t change the ring in some way. Make the rounded edge a bit sharper…  
It took all her will to push through the dampening field, but she could almost see sharpness crawling along the edge of her ring like a long-exposure video of metal rusting. Now, she only had to bend her hand backward to get it to reach the ropes around her wrist, and she’d be golden. Her fingers could reach the rope, though. If she had the ring in her hand, she might be able to shave the ropes down.  
But that was insane! What if she dropped the ring? It was her only weapon: without it, she’d basically be just another person, and there was no fucking way she’d go back to being so powerless. She needed some way, some way to…  
There wasn’t. Not if she wasn’t willing to break her wrist.  
She stared at her hand for a second, contemplating how, exactly, she was supposed to do that. She sighed. “Fuck. I either die or I get out of here.” And she slipped the ring off her finger.  
She nearly dropped it, and barely managed to hold onto it by curling her finger around the armrest and pressing the ring against the wood. She pressed her ring into the wood harder, curling her finger so that the ring scraped up the armrest and into her waiting palm. From there, she turned her wrist as much as she could until she was holding the sharpened edge of the ring against her ropes with two fingers. Then she began to slice.  
Slicing may have been an optimistic phrase, however. She didn’t have a lot of cutting power, and the angle made the cutting difficult, so more like she frayed the edge of the rope that was binding her bit by bit, strand by strand.  
So, she counted strings she cut, instead.

Eight hundred and fifty-seven, eight hundred and fifty-eight, eight hundred and fifty-nine- ah, good. The rope’s cut.  
Cain tugged at the rope on her wrist, the strands falling limply away. She slipped the ring back on her finger, and then worked at her other bonds. Soon both her arms were free, despite the horrible abomination of a knot Lyle’d tied, and then her legs. One thing nobody mentions about being tied up: you’re stiff afterward. She had to spend several minutes massaging her arms and legs just to get the blood flowing through them again.  
Okay, focus: what did she have to work with? A chair and some rope. Not much to them. The door was hardwood, difficult to break, but still fragile. Perhaps she could hit it with the chair and smash it open?  
Cain hefted the chair and smacked it against the door.  
The hinges snapped and the door fell outward, slamming onto the grass with a thump, because grass deadens the sound of things falling against it. She was in the middle of a suburban neighborhood, and she’d stepped into a backyard from a shed. A host of garden tools and utensils lay scattered about the yard, which explained why her shed was empty. A second shed sat to her right, with similarly-scattered tools surrounding it.  
She stepped out of the shed, and her connection to House returned. She’d have contacted House right then… except the shed gave her pause. It was shut as tight as hers had been, and Michael’d mentioned Lyle was holding him, too…  
Cain grabbed a shovel, and kicked the door in.  
Lyle was in there, a bloody bandage covering his knuckles.  
Michael was in there, too, blood dripping from his mouth, a black eye swollen shut, and one horn chipped short.  
Cain saw red.  
She screamed and swung the shovel, smacking it into Lyle’s head. There was a ringing of metal and the crunch of collapsing skull, and then she impaled the shovel through Lyle’s body.  
He gasped, coughing up blood, and then fell silent.  
Cain stared at his body, and felt nothing. She expected to feel angry at him, satisfied at his death, but… nothing. It was like putting down a rabid wolf. She turned to Michael. “Are you okay?”  
“I’ll recover,” Michael slurred. His mouth sounded like it was full of cotton. “Is he…?”  
“He’s dead.”  
Michael sighed. “I thought I was making some progress.”  
Cain, halfway through cutting off his ropes, raised an eyebrow. “You call this progress?”  
“He was opening up to me. I’d hoped to convince him to give up violence, to join our cause, but he refused to believe that anyone who wore a costume could be good. He even though the Justice League was evil.”  
“He was messed up. He locked us in sheds, for Pete’s sake!”  
“It’s not just that,” said Michael, standing. “Cain, I saw… I think you could become him, one day.”  
“What?” Cain stood up from rifling through Lyle’s pockets. “I’m nothing like him! He’s a psychopath!”  
“He killed all the prisoners under his watch, just as you wanted to kill anyone who got in our way.” Michael sighed. “You are nowhere near becoming a monster, but I doubt he was much more of a monster than any of us. I worry for you, Cain. I worry that you would kill indiscriminately, marking a thief and a murderer as one and the same.”  
“Michael… I’m not going to shoot anyone who jaywalks just because he breaks the law. There are limits.”  
“And I would be cautious, Cain, of breaking yours. You have made me concerned, but you are a boon companion and Lee trusts you, so I will leave you be. But if we have this conversation again, it will be because you’ve gone too far.”  
“Fine.” Cain unlatched her wrist dampener and tossed the key to Michael. “Let yourself out.”  
As she stepped into the bright, yellow sunlight, and she felt the last remnants of her power ring, she opened telepathic communications.  
‘This is Lee.’  
‘Lee, this is Cain.’  
‘Holy shit! Where have you been?! Are you okay?’  
‘I am fine. Lock-Up is dead. Michael and I are free. I can see where we are, so House should be able to open a door shortly. I have a request.’  
‘A request?’  
‘Yes. Never send me anywhere with Michael again.’  
She shut off communication, and stared up into the clear blue sky, once again empowered and in control. And everything made sense.

***  
Barry Allen, better known by his superheroic moniker The Flash, was sitting down for coffee in a café with a known supercriminal. Specifically, Leonard Snart, Captain Cold.  
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” asked Barry. Snart knew who he was; had known for a while. He left Barry’s circle of friends alone, though, for which Barry had always been grateful yet concerned. His secret identity wasn’t something he liked to have out in the open.  
Snart blew on his coffee, the steam disappearing as he did. “I met one of Octagon’s members.”  
Barry sucked in a breath through his teeth. Octagon. Something new, a new organization that was tracking down supervillains and killing them. Led by Lee, the man who killed the Joker. “Who?”  
“Cain. Apparently, she has a power ring, like Green Lantern.”  
“Did you steal it?”  
“No. She was too crazy to steal from.”  
“Sounds like serious crazy.”  
“Dammit, Barry, cut the banter.” Snart wasn’t usually so impatient. He’d had his supervillain name before he’d obtained his cold gun or cold powers. “Cain is a psychopath, plain and simple. She was trying to kill me and Mick, and anyone else she could get her hands on.”  
Barry nodded. “They are killers.”  
“But they think they’re right, which makes them all the more dangerous. My sister was kidnapped by Lock-Up, and I had to work for him to get her back, which is the most distasteful thing I’d ever done. Working with Cain, though… She won’t stop. If she’s anything to go by, her companions won’t stop, either. I founded the Rogues to have rules, Barry, and they’re trampling all over them.” The cup of coffee froze in Snart’s grasp. He must’ve been REALLY upset. “Barry, I don’t like working with you. You know that.”  
“I’m well aware,” said Barry. “I can’t count the number of times you’ve frozen my legs.”  
“Point is, I hope asking you to meet me shows that I’m serious about Lee. He’s a danger to the precarious balance I so love in our relationship. And I’m not going after him myself – I’m not crazy – but, if the time comes that the Bat decides he needs to be brought down…” Snart stared at his cup, “…well, I guess we’ll be working together, one more time.”  
Barry nodded. “I understand, Snart. I’ll find you.”  
“No, you won’t,” said Snart, “we’ll find you.” He set his cup on the table, and stood up to walk away.  
“Thanks for meeting me,” said Barry. “Alone, I mean. It shows a great deal of trust.”  
“Alone?” Snart scoffed. “No, Barry. Never alone.”  
From the corner, Mick Rory stood up, setting down his smoldering newspaper. Marco Mardon, the Weather Wizard, took a last bite of his donut before standing up from the count seat. His long hair and trimmed goatee/mustache combo were distinctive, and if you looked closely you could see his green and yellow costume underneath. Axel Walker, the Trickster, was at a table near the front, and Barry was surprised he hadn’t noticed the noteworthy spiky blonde hair. And there, hovering just above her table, just out of sight, was the golden hair and pink costume of Glider, Lisa Snart, in her astral form. She smiled and waved at Barry, just barely visible so he could see her, but just faded enough to not draw attention.  
He’d had them all together. On the off-chance Barry would take him in, Leonard Snart had planned for backup. And Barry hadn’t seen them at all. For one moment, he and Captain Cold stared at one another, and then Barry nodded his respect. Leonard Snart nodded back, and then the Rogues walked out the door. They had been enemies of Barry’s for a long time, but in the future they might prove to be allies.  
God help them all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this will be the last street-level thug Octogan will have to deal with, unless a sufficiently cool criminal shows up because it's difficult to balance power levels when we have someone who's really good with flamethrowers against someone who's invulnerable. Granted, the heroes in the DCU are also extremely powerful, so I'll have to balance that, too, bring my characters to their limits and beyond. For now, though, our next arc will deal with Lee and Click as they deal with the League of Assassins once and for all...  
> By the way, if you understand the reference I made, please don't spoil it for anyone else! Granted, there's Google, so I guess... whatever?  
> EDIT: I realized I needed the ending scene in here for the future. For reference, I am using the New 52 versions of the Rogues, which means they have superpowers. Their costumes are based on their New 52 designs, as well. If you hear Michael Champion through this dialogue, good, because I do, too.


	17. Cutting of the Demon's Head

I had no idea how the League of Assassins was planning on kidnapping me. I was expecting guys with claws for hands or guns or knives or something to step out of the shadows and attack me. It seemed like their MO. What really happened, though, made a lot more sense. It doesn’t make sense to attack me with normal weapons, even though I can feel the pain. Therefore, they dropped bombs on me from the skies.  
The first warning I got of it was when I was hunting in Central City for that thing I talked about. I wanted to see if there was a way I could get an edge in the upcoming fight, and I thought I could find something there. However, when I heard something whistling down on me from above, I had just enough time to look up and swear before an aerial bomb dropped on my face. I wasn’t dead, and I wasn’t even unconscious yet, but the street around me was blasted for a six-foot radius around me. People were screaming and running away.  
I stood. “Who the hell did that?” I asked. This was right before several more bombs dropped on my head, and everything went black.  
***  
I woke up with my hands strapped down by solid titanium and everything up to my neck covered in metal. I could barely move my jaw, and anything below that could only be moved with twitches.  
I was being guarded by two figures. One, a man with sunglasses, a green, long-sleeved shirt, and a large hook for a hand. Who was that again…? Right, Hook. Killed Deadman. The other had hair that made him look like an owl, and a bow strapped to his back with a quiver full of arrows. Malcom Merlyn, I suspect, though very different from his Arrowverse appearance. For one thing, he looked nothing like John Barrowman.  
“Hi, fellas,” I said. “I take it I’m in a super-secret Assassin base?”  
Neither of them said anything.  
“Huh. Okay, then. I’m just going to keep talking about stuff until you talk or tell me what’s going on.”  
And I did. I went off on several dozen tangents about Star Trek, gun control, baked bread and sports teams, as well as everything in-between. I wasn’t sure how long I talked, but eventually I ran out of things to talk about.  
And they were still silent.  
I was really scared, then.  
Contacting House did nothing. They must’ve had some sort of field generated to prevent contact. I guess they weren’t really keen on letting me go again, not after what I did last time. I guess I was stuck, and there was nothing to do except wait and see what the evil monologue would be.  
So, I did. I waited. And I waited. And I waited some more. And all the while, they just stood there, occasionally pacing or stretching, but ever-watchful, never letting a second go by without keeping an eye on me. I’ve no doubt that, could I escape, they’d’ve attacked me immediately, and I’m not sure what tricks they had or if they could even take me.  
All I could do was sit there and wait.

It turns out, if you wait long enough without doing anything you enter a meditative state. I found myself staring at a particular crack in the rock in the tunnel I was in, staring at it instead of the artificial lighting or the wires running along the tunnel walls. Fascinating, that crack: as if it could go deeper, and deeper, representing the depths within a person’s being, exposing themselves to their deepest, darkest…  
I heard footsteps and snapped out of my thoughts.  
Talia al Ghul walked into the room, with several League assistants with her. She snapped her fingers, and four out of eight of them walked over to my restraints and pushed some buttons on the sides, causing my cage to levitate. The four of them grabbed handles and escorted me from the tunnel I was in and into a larger tunnel.  
This one was done up in decorations, like red curtains and rugs, wood finishes and candles. Honestly, there was such an air of decorum and formality about that room it felt like a Gothic church. There was a stage at the far end with steps leading up it, and a microphone stand hooked up. I was all-around impressed by both the sense of architecture and technology these assassins had.  
I was also impressed by their lineup. Ubu, the guardian of the al Ghul family, stood behind Talia, his bulky shoulders and bald head shining like beacons out of his armored tank-top. Hook and Dark Archer (Merlyn) were there, as I’ve mentioned, but they also had Dragonfly, Silken Spider and Tiger Moth, once ranked the three most dangerous criminals in the world (and a huge step forward for women’s rights as criminals, all three of them). She also had Snake Fatale, Nightstorm, Mad Dog, White Ghost, Detonator, Maduvu, Razorburn, Scarlet Scythe and Whip, as well as a few assassins who didn’t have funny monikers, like Prudence Wood, Doctor Darrk and David Cain, plus several dozen more who I didn’t know. All incredibly lethal assassins in their own rights, and liable to be dangerous to my friends if not me. I’ve no doubt, however, they were all capable of finding ways to hurt me. I didn’t want that.  
Talia stood onstage and stared down at me, her cold expression half-covered by her long black hair. She was an attractive woman, but it’s hard to feel attraction when you know how much blood is on her hands, and the other things she’s done. Damian Wayne is enough to know that she’s done some pretty unspeakable things, even if he’s innocent of those charges.  
“Lee!” she said. Goddamn, did she have a tone. I would’ve stood up straighter if I wasn’t locked down. “You are here today charged with murdering my father in cold blood. How do you plead?”  
“Guilty!” I said immediately.  
There was a pregnant pause. “What?” she responded.  
It gave me a perverse sense of joy to see her off-kilter like that. “I killed your father by breaking his body open and tossing his head into a pool of lava. He was an evil man who wanted to kill a hell of a lot of people, and I consider it a service to-” I saw Ra’s’s face in front of me, moments before he died. “…to the people of Earth, what I did to him.” I wanted to shake my head, but all I could do was squeeze my eyes shut and push the image Ra’s away. “I would think you would consider it a service, too.”  
There’s a tenseness that spreads through the assassins. Some of them have expressions burning with fury, others are merely intrigued by what I said, ready to act but entertained by the proceedings.  
Talia’s eyes blazed with fury, but tightly controlled, held back by steely will. “Why do you say that?” she asked.  
“I…” I hadn’t expected to get this far. I was expecting her to lash out when I sullied her father’s name like that. What could I say? Debate wasn’t my strong suit; hell, I’d been part of the chess club in high school. I knew more facts about DC Comics than anyone here. What could I say? “…Ra’s al Ghul was, once, a good man.”  
“How would you know this?” She motioned for me to continue.  
“I know of his early life, his nomadic days, his… his wife, Sora. I know the incident that made him the man he became.” I’m not sure how much of it is accurate with what I know, given that Nyssa Raatko is standing meekly beside Talia, but I hope enough generalizations will get the meaning across. “I know what the king of his country did to him. I know about the Lazarus Pit, the strangulation of Ra’s’s wife, being framed for that crime… What happened to him was a tragedy. No one should ever have to go through what he did.”  
“Then why kill him?” She stepped down from the stage, walking towards me. “Why, if you sympathize with him, do you murder him?”  
“Do you love the detective?”  
She stopped short. “Of course I do.”  
“Would you join him in his crusade?”  
“I… I would… but I was bound by other duties.”  
“As was I. Ra’s al Ghul… he was… IS… a remarkable man. The history he had in his head, not to mention knowledge of art and science, were second to none. His appreciation of martial arts and fascination by animals were both admirable. And the fact he had cultured himself, despite coming from a time he acknowledged was barbaric, was a testament to how hard he pushed himself. However… he was broken, and he and I would have crossed paths eventually. Batman wouldn’t stop him, and Ra’s wouldn’t stop on his own. It was… it was only right to put him down.”  
“Put him down? My father was a good man. He was trying to save the world.”  
“At first, maybe. I’ve no doubt he was much more moral than most leaders in history. However, you have to wonder about a man who would align himself with the Nazis. He had standards, until they got in the way. You remember the whales? The way he tortured them, used them for his own plans? They were still alive. And above all, he forced you and Batman to have a child that neither of you knew existed. I don’t know about you, but that sounds like rape to me.”  
She was quiet.  
“You don’t have to go down his path, Talia. You don’t have to be what he became. You have control of the Demon; not just the League of Assassins, but every single branch Ra’s was linked into. You don’t have to be torn between your father or your love anymore. You can choose one. You could be a force for good in the world.”  
“Do you honestly believe that?” she asked. “Do you believe people can change?”  
Images of all the people I’d killed flashed in front of me. “I have to,” I said. “I have to believe people can choose to be good. That our lives aren’t just… set in stone. I have to believe that we forge our own destinies.” I tried to look pleading. I tried to show that I meant it. Please, God, don’t make me kill them all. I couldn’t take it. “Please. Choose to be good.”  
She stared at me for a long time. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking anymore. Her determination was so tightly controlled that her expression was completely blank, and not just the blank where you can tell they’re trying not to show emotion. She turns away from me, and even her body posture can’t tell me what she’s thinking.  
Finally, though, she sighs. “I’ve done so much. I’ve tried to kill your friends. Are you still willing to forgive me?”  
“I… I can try.”  
She laughed. “Is that all?”  
“It’s all I can do.”  
She laughed again. My god, she had a beautiful laugh. It was weird to think about right now, but she did. “All we can do is try? As good a rallying call as any.” She turned to face me and crossed her arms. “What would you have me do?”  
I opened my mouth, and then shut it. “Honestly? No idea. I didn’t think I’d get this far.”  
“Well, we can start by releasing you, if you promise not to attack my servants.”  
“I promise, but do you mind if I escape?”  
“Escape? How? Those bonds would hold the Cyborg in terms of strength.”  
“Yeah, but not Martian Manhunter.” The back of my cage broke off as a spike exploded outward. The metal plating was flung somewhere behind me, and then the rest of the plating was ripped off as tendrils erupted from my clothing.  
“What is that?” asked one of the assassins.  
“That,” I said, “is my friend. We were inspired by the way the Venom symbiote from Marvel comics can conceal itself from person to person. She’s not exactly a symbiote, but she had enough abilities to augment the symbiont’s natural characteristics. Basically, I smuggled her in as another layer of clothing.” My clothes morphed and fell off, revealing a second layer of clothing underneath as Click reformed from a shapeless blob. “Say hi, Click.”  
“Hi everyone!” she said with the bubbliest voice she could muster.  
The world’s deadliest assassins, rogues, thieves and miscreants were struck silent at the sight of Click. Hardly a surprise, as even the most experienced people can be caught off-guard by Click.  
“…what is that?” someone finally asked.  
“She’s Click!” I replied. “Just imagine Plastic Man but hyped up on caffeine and female.”  
“Good heavens,” said another voice.  
Talia clapped her hands together. “Enough chitchat! Lee, Click: you two shall join me in my office. Follow me.”  
We did. We walked past the cadre of armed assassins Talia had on-hand and out a nearby door, which led to a nearby office. It’s surprising to me that, of all the things to carve into a cave, an office, no matter how ornate or immaculate, would be one of them. Her desk was solid wood, and I didn’t recognize what kind of wood, which meant it was really expensive or I don’t know what different woods looks like.  
“What did you have in mind?” asked Talia. She was seated at her desk, and motioned to the chairs for us to sit. “How could we use our talents?”  
“Well,” I said, sitting, “I was thinking-”  
“It’s a trap!” said Click, right before iron clasps snapped shut on my wrists and ankles.  
Talia drew a gun from her desk and pulled the trigger. Click slumped to the floor, and I was once more trapped, this time without a trump card. Talia put the gun down, and then reached behind her desk again to pick up an aluminum baseball bat. She walked over to me, took a couple of practice swings, and then hit me in the head.  
My neck snapped back, and the room was spinning. I couldn’t even think for a moment, and I was lucid only long enough to watch the bat hit me in the face again before everything went black.  
***  
Click woke up when the bullet emerged from her forehead and she had a headache. Heads were terrible. Why did people have heads when you could have headaches? The brain should be in the stomach: that way, you only had stomachaches, which were less not good.  
She was in a dungeon. Not a dungeon. A dung heap. Not JUST a dung heap. A garbage chute. Yes, she was in the garbage. But instead of garbage, it was bodies. Lots of bodies and blood and limbs.  
Yuck.  
Click pulled herself out. The chute was at least twenty feet tall, and the machinery told her it regularly crushed and mushed and splushed(?) the bodies every so often to prevent blockage or something. It smelled like old meat and dirty clothes.  
The hatch at the top was closed, but Click stretched up to it, grabbing ahold of a cleft in the rock above it to hold. She reached out, placed her hand on the panel, and pushed. Nothing happened.  
She heard voices emanating from the other side. She went instantly silent, her skin changing to match the texture of the walls around her. The footsteps on the other side got gradually louder, and then stopped directly beside the panel. She could feel boredom and tedium coming from two people, as if this was a routine part of their job. Perhaps there was a secret way to open the panel that she just hadn’t discovered yet.  
The panel opened inward, depositing an old hamburger wrapper and a large soda cup down the disposal. The two sets of footsteps walked away, and then there was silence.  
Of course. It opened inward.  
Click flattened her fingers, slipping them underneath the panel and lifting. It easily opened inward, allowing enough space for her to slip out undetected, or so she hoped. She didn’t feel any emotions nearby, but that wasn’t saying much: these assassins masked their emotions so well, it was almost like they didn’t have any half the time.  
The hallway outside was clear, though. It smelled less like old meat and more like disinfectant, though the meaty smell lingered underneath. It also smelled like boiled zucchini, for some reason. Click grinned. She loved boiled zucchini.  
Now, where would Lee be kept? More importantly, where would Talia be staying? The answer, of course, relied on asking yourself where you would put something important. The best thing to do would be to lock it under heavy chains, but this resulted in someone knowing something great was somewhere in there. Therefore, the trick was to put it somewhere that was protected but no one knew where it was. But when someone was somewhere where it was, then being there where it was meant they knew something had been left by someone and was important. Therefore, the trick was to HIDE it somewhere where someone wouldn’t find it, or if they did they wouldn’t ask any questions. So, the trick was to find the place that was the best hidden, least obvious, and least guarded.  
Logic was a fine thing. Click glanced around, and then started walking.

Logic was obviously terrible. She had walked to the least obvious spot and found herself in the women’s bathroom.  
There was nothing in here. The tiles were neat and orderly, for the most part, and the sinks were clean, for the most part, and there was plenty of paper towels. No “for the most part” for those: assassins apparently knew the benefits of having plenty of paper towels. If only they used them to clean! That tile was filthy! As was that one, and that one, and…  
Logic was beginning to rear its ugly head again. Those tiles weren’t dirty on accident; there was a pattern emerging. One, two, five… there… just arrange these like that, and…  
The back wall of the bathroom shifted back, and then slid away to reveal a secret passageway. Jackpot! Logic could stay a while longer!  
In all honesty, though, Click didn’t understand how she knew that pattern. It was like it was in her head or something, sent from someone else. If she was fully Martian, she might be able to find the source of what was causing it, but all she knew was she knew what she’d known and now she was here, heading down a dark cave towards a gradually brightening blue light.  
There was a room at the back, almost perfectly round. There was a desk with a single monitor, 1a computer and some basic necessities for an office, and a white woman with short black hair staring at Click in shock. Click knew it was shock because her emotions were blaring out of her mind.  
“Hi!” said Click. “I’m Click! You’re scared. Are you okay?”  
The woman stared at her. “How did you get back here?”  
“I pushed the tiles in the bathroom until something happened. You’re someone hiding somewhere with something, right? What’re you hiding?”  
“Nothing. What are you hiding?”  
“Something. See, I can tell when you’re upset, and when you’re lying. If you’re hiding something from the rest of the people here, then that makes sense, because they’re bad people. You, I’m not so sure of. But if you hide something from me, well, that’s just stupid, because we’re on the same side.”  
“We’re not on the same side.” The woman behind the desk drew a throwing knife and chucked it at Click.  
It imbedded up to the hilt in Click’s boob. She stared at it and then at the woman. “That was rude.”  
“You’re not… what are you?”  
“Did it not set off alarm bells that I’m green?”  
“You see a lot of weird stuff in this business. Are you here to kill me?”  
“No, that’s ridiculous. We’re on the same side.”  
“Why do you keep saying that?”  
“It follows that, if my enemy is the League of Assassins, and your enemy is the League of Assassins, the both of us could benefit from combining our forces and becoming allies.”  
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”  
“Wow, you’re really good at summarizing! As I said, I’m Click. What’s your name?”  
The woman stared at her, and Click’s outstretched hand. “Nyssa,” she said finally. “Nyssa Raatko.”  
“Is your name also your middle name or were you repeating your first name for dramatic effect?”  
“This is going to be awful,” said Nyssa.  
“So, what’s your stake in all this?”  
“I don’t have to tell you that.”  
“Then let me tell you what I want: I want to rescue Lee, and kill Talia and everyone who won’t change their ways.”  
Nyssa stared at Click for a moment, with intrigue on her face. “How about a compromise? We kill Talia and leave the other assassins alive.”  
“Why would we do that?”  
“I could use them.”  
“For killing?”  
“Killing bad people.”  
“That’s how the League got started, and they haven’t proved good at it.”  
“What would you suggest?”  
“If we’re going to leave you in charge of this gang, you have to promise me you won’t use this organization to kill people.”  
“What, like the eight of you do?”  
“No, we only kill bad guys- oh, I see where you’re going with this. Sure, that makes sense. Okay, so, in summation: we get Lee out of here, kill Talia, and then you get the League of assassins.”  
“There’s another hiccup.”  
“Oh dear.”  
“The Seven Men of Death,” said Nyssa. She walked over to her computer and clicked a few keys, bring up seven files for Click to see. “Intensely loyal to Talia, they won’t just stand by and let me take over after I off her.”  
“And the rest of the League will?”  
“Of course. Ra's al Ghul is my father.”  
Click morphed the knife through her body into her arm and out her hand, holding it to Nyssa’s neck before the other woman had time to react. “Care to explain?”  
“My father fucked my mother, and I was born. I tracked him down and he threw me out to be brutalized by Nazi ‘science’, where my entire family died and I was left infertile, scarred, beaten and with an unquenchable rage against my father.”  
“Wow…” Click removed the knife from Nyssa’s neck. “…need a hug?”  
“I’m fine,” Nyssa replied. She placed her finger on the flat of the blade and nudged it away. “Don’t point things at my face like that.”  
“Oh, sorry. You want it back?”  
“No. Keep it. Do you have a plan?”  
“I was just kinda thinking of attacking everyone who got between me and my friend.”  
“Not a good plan. Luckily, I have something in mind.”  
“I thought you might. Nobody hides something for no reason.”  
“You’re very strange.”  
“I’ve been told as much. Before we begin, do you have any idea how Talia took out Lee?”  
“He’s invulnerable, but that doesn’t mean he can’t still feel pain, and there’s a physical limit to how much pain someone can experience before they black out. She used a baseball bat to cause Lee to cross that threshold.”  
“Where is she holding him?”  
“I don’t know. She said she had something in mind for him. Do you have any other questions?”  
“Yeah. I saw you with her. If you’re pals, why are you trying to kill her? If you hate your… I guess it’s both of your father? She liked him. Why would she work with you?”  
“She thinks she brainwashed me.” Nyssa grinned. “I specialize in brainwashing. It was a simple matter to bypass the procedure’s effects.”  
“Nice.”  
“What’s that? ‘Nice’? That’s a feat of mental engineering that no one’s ever done before!”  
“Why’d you downplay it?”  
“I didn’t- You know what, I don’t care. We need to get started. I have agents who are willing to act at a moment’s notice to kill all those loyal to Talia and put me in control. All we need to deal with is her assassins and Talia herself, and the Seven Men of Death won’t be far from Talia herself. We need something to draw the eight of them out.”  
“Do you know where they might come from?”  
“I have a pretty good idea.”  
“Then start your uprising.” Click cracked her knuckles. “I’ll deal with the Seven Men of Death. Just point me at them.”  
Nyssa nodded. “Alright. Go here. And take this.” She handed Click a communicator. “This will keep me in contact with you while you go. If anything changes, let me know. I’ll guide you to the location.”  
“Thanks.” Click looked Nyssa dead in the eyes. “You’re really nice, and I think we could work together.” The specks in her eyes vanished, replaced by two burning orbs of angry green. “If you even think of betraying me, I’ll know it, and I’ll slit your throat without a second though.” She embedded the knife in the rock, and then walked away.  
***  
I woke up chained to a chair. “This is not a theme I’d prefer!” I yelled out. I had a splitting headache, so that put a stop to any more yelling I had in mind. Instead, I focused on my surroundings.  
Dark cavern, to be expected. Creepy pool of water behind me, lit from the bottom? Unusual, but atmospheric. The eight people watching me? Now, that was unusual, considering Talia was in the middle of them.  
“You lied to me,” I said to her. It felt hollow coming out of my mouth, and after I said it I couldn’t help but cringe. One of the people, Hook, smirked, saying nothing but smirking at me through his stupid shades. We were in a cave?! Why did he insist on wearing those?”  
“I did,” Talia replied, “although you made an impassioned plea. I almost took you up on it.”  
“Except?”  
“Except that you killed my father.” She folded her arms. “That was unforgivable, and you expect me to work with you? How arrogant are you?”  
“A few shades less arrogant than your father.”  
Talia snapped her fingers, and everything went white for a moment. When it cleared, I had shrapnel in my eyes and I wasn’t worried about my headache anymore, because a bomb just went off in my face and I was having difficulty thinking.  
“Thank you, Detonator,” said Talia. A man in a ski mask and wearing camouflage trousers nodded his head. “That was for your insolence, Lee. Speak ill of my father again and it will be worse for you.”  
“Guh,” I replied. That’s the sound you make when you’re spitting out shards of metal and have an invulnerable tongue. “You… that won’t kill me.”  
“But it hurts, and that’s enough. I know you can feel pain, so you’re going to feel all the pain you’ve put me in.” She walked over to the pool of glowing water. “Do you know what this is?”  
“Your spa?”  
“A Lazarus pit. And you’re going in.”  
Why? What was the point? The pits made Ra’s immortal, in exchange for a brief period of insanity. I’m not sure what effect it would have on me.  
“You mistake my intent,” said Talia, “I can see that. Rest assured, it will all become clear in a moment.” She placed a foot on my chair. “Farewell, Lee, Demonslayer.” And then she kicked me in.  
I’m not sure what’s so bad about being in the pit, at least at first. I was fine. Sure, it stung a bit, but… what was that? Why did it sting? Was the pit trying to – god! That hurts! What’s going on? The pit was supposed to heal, not hurt! Why did it hurt? Why?! Why does this happen to me? I lived a good life, I had friends. Why does this hurt? Why did I have to leave my home? Why does this hurt? What was I supposed to do when a hero went bad? Why does this hurt? Whywhyhywhywhywhywhwyhywwhwywhhhhhhhhh…  
***  
The killer lay in the pool, screaming. The bubble erupting from his throat were all Talia needed. So long as she had no need of regeneration, his torment would continue. If her father were alive, she hoped he would be proud of the thought she put into that.  
As much as she might relish this moment, however, she had other things to do. “Where is the other one?” she asked her assassins. It didn’t matter which one: one of them would be brave enough to answer her.  
“In the corpse block,” said Whip. The only woman of the seven, she wore black boots and sleeves with a white leotard and a green belt. “They have deposited her in the corpse disposal area.”  
“Good. Now, bring me my sister. I need to have her…” Talia didn’t get to finish her thought. Standing at the entrance to the Lazarus Pit was the girl, the green one, blood from corpses marring her clothes and a surprisingly affable expression on her face. “How are you alive?”  
“I have a heart to pump blood, a set of lungs to breathe, and a brain to think.”  
“There are several others required,” said Maduvu. His nails were already lengthening to the lethal sharpness he liked them at. His curly black hair was already in a tail behind his head. “Let us see which of those you have.”  
Shellcase made motions to the others. Talia couldn’t see his expression through his skull mask, but she had no doubt he was checking their options, figuring out where to put people to make this place more defensible. Merlyn moved to a perch on a nearby ledge, drawing an arrow back and pointing it at the girl. Hook had already drawn a rifle and was on another ledge, also pointing his rifle at Click. Razorburn had already drawn several knives, Whip had her whip out, and Detonator was holding a rocket launcher. Without another word, Detonator pulled the trigger.  
The bomb exploded, carving out chunks of the cavern walls and ceiling. The smoke was enough to obscure Click from view, so neither Merlyn nor Hook lowered their weapons.  
“Whip, Maduvu: make sure she’s dead.” Shellcase pointed at the smoke for good measure. “Ma’am, we need to get you out of here.”  
“I will not leave until she is dead and Lee is in my clutches once again.” She paused. “Is that gunfire?”  
Shellcase tilted his head. “Sounds like. We might have intruders in the base.”  
“That would be inconvenient. Send a couple assassins to-”  
“Do you know what I love about being a shapeshifter?”  
There was a scream, and then Whip’s head came sailing from within the smoke cloud. A moment later, something exploded and red splattered the ground just outside the smoke cloud. Maduvu’s head follow a moment later.  
“The imagination,” Click continued. “You could be anything. I can turn into animals. I can give myself extra hands or fingers. I could even turn into a brick and sit in a wall for as long as I like. But most of all?” The smoke cleared, and standing where Click had stood was a giant green dragon, with red spines running along its back and glowing with light green energy. “I can do this.”  
She breathed fire, a blazing hot scorch of sheer white flames. Talia dove out of the way, Shellcase right behind her. Detonator attempted to follow her, as well, but he was too slow, and the edge of his pants caught fire, which in turn ignited one of the explosives he always carried on him, ending his career in the League of Assassins with a bang.  
Merlyn and Hook didn’t wait any longer. The report of Hook’s gun went off, and after a few seconds Talia heard the ‘thwip’ of arrows being let fly from Merlyn’s bow. She began to notice arrows appearing in Click’s flank, which only seemed to anger her.  
Razorburn didn’t last very long. He was squashed when he tried to stab Click’s leg, which proved that you shouldn’t attack a dragon with knives unless you have a plan. Shellcase disappeared a moment later, and Talia saw him atop the dragon’s tail, which was coming out of his ribcage.  
Talia vanished into a hidden passageway before the dragon could reach her. She had two more options left and had to decide on one of them before Merlyn and Hook died. They were brave soldiers, of course, and had given everything for the cause, but she had no doubt they would soon be dead, and she needed a plan.  
One option would take too long. Her secret weapon was nearby but would never get here in time. The other was deadly: she could do it, but she’d never survive. Talia reached into her boot and pulled out a syringe full of blue liquid. She kept it on her as a last resort, something no one else knew about, that would give her an edge. It didn’t seem likely that she would make it out of here alive; maybe it was better to bring her killers down with her.  
She took the needle and jammed it into her neck.  
***  
The bowman and the sniper were dead. Click had changed back to her normal form, and was staring at the scary pit. She wasn’t sure where Talia went, so her primary concern was figuring out how to get Lee out of the pit without touching it herself. It looked awful.  
Lee was sitting on the bottom, staring into space and occasionally letting a bubble out. He’d be fine. He was invulnerable. Just needed to find a hook and a rope-  
Hey.  
Those people she killed.  
One guy had a hook for a hand, and the other had a whip.  
Logic to the rescue!  
Click took a step towards hook-man, and then the wall exploded.  
Talia emerged, holding a section of the wall she’d just broken through. She took one look at Click and shattered the rock.  
“That… could you do that before?” Just to be sure, Click pushed Talia’s emotions slightly towards arrogance. She needed an answer, so she could know how to fight.  
Talia smiled. “Superhuman serum. Gives you Superman-level superpowers but kills you after ten minutes. If I’m dying, so do you.” Her eyes gleamed with golden light, and a beam of boiling light shot out.  
Click barely dodged it, then had to duck and weave and morph around that light like a lunatic. It moved just as fast as Talia’s eyes, but luckily, that meant it could be useful.  
Click started grabbing rocks and chucking them. They made clacking noises whenever they hit the wall, or an electrical panel, or the edge of a pit of creepy water. It wasn’t long, but whenever one of those rocks connected, Talia glanced over to where it had happened, which diverted the rays long enough to damage the wall, short out the panel, or boil off a little of the creepy pool of water.  
Talia noticed it a moment later, and the laser eyes shut off. Then she grabbed a piece of rubble and chucked it through Click.  
It was too fast to react to. Click had a hole in her stomach the size of her fist. She would heal, but damn if that hurt! And there was more coming.  
She started running. She’d heard Martians were as fast as Kryptonians, but her Tamaranean physiology messed with that, so while she was quick, she was no match for Talia hyped up on those super steroids.  
The master of assassins flew at Click at near-supersonic speeds, smashing her into a wall and splattering Click all over it. She could pull herself back together, but at the rate she was going, she was going to die. Probably not due to physical injury, but mostly because Talia would figure out that she could turn her eyebeams back on again, and there was no way she’d get away from being vaporized.  
Talia grabbed Click by the neck. Click slipped through her grip and wrapped herself around Talia in liquid form like a kinky slime monster scene from an anime. Click changed her density and consistency to something resembling concrete (only more so) and tried to hold Talia in place.  
It didn’t help. Talia just started spinning in place, scattering bits of Click all over the room.  
“You idiot,” said Talia. “You think you can stop me? I’m like Superman now! There’s nothing you can do!”  
Maybe she was right. Maybe Click couldn’t retort because she didn’t have a mouth right then. But it’s not like she had a lot of options. Her strength was weaker than a Martian’s because of her Tamaranean half. It wasn’t by much, but it was enough. She could fly if her head was clear, but flying wasn’t really an option right now. There was a Tamaranean ability she could use, but that required fire, and her Martian half didn’t really like fire.  
Not like she had much choice, now.  
She pulled herself back together, and held out her hand, palm up. Talia was watching her with a smirk. She didn’t have long left for this world, and she still toyed with her enemy? How arrogant can you get?  
Anger. She needed anger, righteous fury. Concentrate. Force yourself to see your enemy as an ideal to put down. Allow them to be dehumanized, to become less than nothing. Do that… and you could achieve power.  
Click’s hand started smoking, and then started burning with green fire. Her Tamaranean half was delighted, reveling in the power it gave her. Her Martian half, as well as the rest of her, was in intense pain.  
Martians hated fire. It was one of the things that hurt them. Well, it hurt humans, too, but not nearly to the extent that it did Martians. She could feel her flesh melting and recoiling at the feeling of fire, and her Martian abilities were dampened. There would be no more shapeshifting, now, no escaping physical pain. But, she could use righteous fury. That was something.  
“Impressive,” said Talia. “Your hand is on fire.”  
“You’ll be on fire, soon,” Click shot back. She coated her arms and hands with more fire, until the green flames climbed to the ceiling and blackened it with soot. “Come at me.”  
“If you insist.” Talia rushed at Click, not even moving fast enough that Click couldn’t track her. That was Talia’s last mistake.  
Click forced all the flames into one fist, and slugged Talia as hard as she could.  
The green explosion burst out of Click’s hand with a resounding boom, knocking her back against the wall. Her hand was sizzling, but without the flames there to hurt her, her Martian healing was starting to kick in. Hopefully, she wouldn’t need to do that too many more times.  
The dust cleared, and Talia stood there, glaring at Click with one eye. The other eye, and most of Talia’s head, was blown clear away, the edges blacked and charred. Talia’s eye was swollen with tears, but she managed to take a breath and croak out “You… bitch.” Then she collapsed and Click felt no more emotions steaming off her.  
So, she was dead. Now, Click just need a whip and a hook hand.

She ran back to the creepy pit room and found Nyssa with a handful of assassins already there. They’d taken the liberty of fishing Lee out of the pit and were watching him. Nyssa had a key in her hands, but it was clutched in her hand while she had her arms folded.  
“Aren’t you going to release him?” asked Click.  
“In a few minutes,” Nyssa replied. “We can’t take the risk that he isn’t insane right now.”  
“Well, he was in the water for a while, but-”  
“The Lazarus Pits cause temporary insanity, forcing the user to attack the ones they love. He could be out of control right now, and try to attack y-”  
Lee growled and strained at his chains, glaring around him like a feral animal.  
“Like that,” Nyssa finished. “Give him a few minutes.”  
“Okay. Did we win?”  
Nyssa chuckled. “Yeah,” she said, “we won.”  
“What now?” asked Click. “Who do you go after?”  
“Honestly? Nobody. There’s a few countries without access to basic resources we can help. If their government insists on getting in the way, we move them. It’s that simple.”  
Click nodded. “You’re telling the truth, at least. Thanks for helping me out! We’ve put someone evil in the ground today.”  
“Bite your tongue,” Nyssa snapped. “She was evil, but she was my sister.” Her voice and expression softened. “I think Lee almost had her convinced to change. She might be running the League instead, by your side. For the sake of her memory, I’ll carry out that dream.”  
“Did she have any other family?”  
“…yes. She had a son. I… I’m not on good terms with the father. I…” Nyssa frowned. “I did a lot of awful things, when I was going after the League. I’m going to try to be better, but… perhaps I shouldn’t tell him the news.”  
“I will,” said Click. “Where does he live?”  
“He lives with his father, Bruce Wayne.” Lee had stopped growling and was slumped over. “He’s almost sane again. Click, thank you for what you’ve done today. You’ve changed the direction of the League of Assassins. I don’t know how we can ever repay you.”  
“Well,” said Click, “you might wanna change the name.”  
Nyssa stared for a moment, smirked, and then laughed out loud. “Click, you are full of surprises. I name you Soyuznik, Ally. Bear the mantle well.”  
“Thanks,” Click replied. She reached out and shook Nyssa’s hand. “I will.”  
***  
I woke up on a train. My head hurt, and I couldn’t really remember how I got here. Click was sitting on the seat on the other side, staring at a window that was pitch black. I couldn’t tell if it was dark out or some kind of tarp was on the window.  
“Where are we?” I asked. My voice was hoarse. I felt like I hadn’t spoken in a while.  
“I don’t know,” said Click. “They didn’t want us to know where we were.”  
“Who’s ‘they’?”  
“The Legion. That’s the new name for the League of Assassins.”  
“League of…? Click, what happened after I blacked out?”  
“Well, I worked with someone within the League who was willing to oust Talia.”  
“Oh, I see. Because that ends well.”  
“Lee, she seemed reasonable, and honestly, Nyssa seemed reasonable.”  
“Nyssa? As in, Nyssa Raatko?! Click, you absolutely CANNOT trust her!”  
“Why not?”  
“She – Click, she’s insane! She’s tried to kill hundreds of people before! She tried to kill SUPERMAN! She almost raped Tim Drake! You can’t trust her!”  
“And you would trust Talia?” Click demanded. Her normally calm expression is twisted and angry. “Do you even know what she’s done? She’s killed thousands of people, she’s experimented on people, and I don’t know the number of times she’s helped her father in his insane schemes! But if you were willing to trust her, then Nyssa is just as good. She doesn’t have quite the track record, and she knows what it’s like to be helpless. She’s going to help a lot of people.”  
I frowned. “I still don’t like it.”  
“We’ll keep an eye on her, Lee. But she’s in charge now, and I think she’ll do some good. Everyone deserves a second chance, right? Isn’t that why you left Harley Quinn alive?”  
“Yeah. Yeah, I guess.” I frowned. “That pit, though…”  
“It sounds like it was awful.”  
“It was. It… it felt like being burned alive while also being frozen to death. I’ll never forget it, as long as I live.” I glanced down, and noticed her hand. It was charred and blackened, as if she’d stuck in in a fire. “Is that… are you okay?”  
“I’m fine. It’s something a few of my people could do.” She held up her hand. “We used to be able to cast Starbolts a long time ago, back when we were pure Tamaranean. This… I’m not sure what this is. I could barely even glow before, but now that I’m in this world, I can create fire. I don’t know what it is or where it came from.” She looked at me. “Do you know what’s happening to me?”  
I shook my head. “Tamaraneans and Martians barely interacted in the comics. I don’t know what’s going to happen.” I sighed and leaned back in my seat. “I just don’t know. I don’t know what’s coming, or what could happen. Talia and her League nearly got us, and almost none of them had powers. I need to get stronger. I need to…” I sighed again. “Where are we going?”  
“We have to talk to Talia’s son,” said Click. “He needs to know his mother is dead.”  
“Which son?”  
“She had another?”  
“She did. I thought he died, but I’m not sure of anything right now. Which son?”  
“Damian Wayne.”  
I frowned. “I know him.”  
“Is he a superhero?”  
“Spoilers. I’m not going to reveal someone’s secret identity unless it’s necessary. I take it we’re going to Wayne Manor after this?”  
“Once we get to a town we can tell House about, we’ll head there immediately.”  
“Okay. I… I’m not good with people. Do you want me along?”  
Click nodded and held her arm. “I’m scared. When people lose someone they love… it hurts. It’s like losing an arm, to feel what they feel. It…”  
“…it’s like a hole opens in your chest.”  
“Yeah…” She stared at me. “…are you okay?”  
“Not really,” I replied. “I keep having nightmares of the people I’ve killed. I don’t want to hurt anyone else. And… I miss my family.” I just stared at the ceiling and tried not to cry. “I miss my family. I miss the park where we used to play. I miss the fights we had. I miss my dad’s cooking. I miss it.”  
“My siblings and I were in self-defense classes,” said Click. “We’d practice sparring, and sometimes we’d be injured. My mom would patch us up and chastise us for being so rough, but my dad would always say it would make us stronger.”  
I grinned. “Sounds like my mom. She’d have us work during the summer, fixing up the house where it broke, adding gardens and building things. I stubbed my thumb more times than I can count, trying to figure out how to use a hammer.”  
She laughed. “You made things yourself? You didn’t have machines for that?”  
“We were a primitive people we,” I replied with a grin.  
We laughed at that, and then the somber mood returned. “They’re all gone,” Click said. “We’ll never see them again.”  
“No. We won’t. These people we have to kill…some of them have families. Slade Wilson had children that he loved dearly. What if the others had people they loved? What if we took away someone’s father or mother, or their son or daughter? Are we really doing the right thing?”  
Clicked leaned back in her seat and stared at the black window for a moment. “Do you know of the White Martians?”  
“Yeah, I do.”  
“Then you know they hated Green Martians. That they were willing to wipe us out, and we couldn’t stop them. They wouldn’t make peace, they wouldn’t stop until every last Green Martian was dead. So, my ancestors killed them all.”  
“What?”  
“Every single White Martian was wiped from the face of Mars. Our ancestors thought it was the best thing they’d ever done. We thought it was monstrous. We called our ancestors monsters, genocidal, unwilling to seek a compromise, and we hated them. When we found living White Martians, we rejoiced that our sins could be undone. But they tried to kill us, too, and their actions led to the death of most of the people I loved. Brainiac took care of the rest.” She stared at me with her eyes like stars. “I didn’t understand what my ancestors did until now. Maybe not every White Martian would have become a killer, but every White Martian did. Some people… they will not stop. They will keep on killing. And if you know they’re going to, then… you have to kill them, first.” Her hands shook. Click closed her eyes and forced them to stillness. “As much as I wish we could live in harmony. Do you understand?”  
“I…” I wanted to. I desperately wanted a cause to get behind. “…I’ll try. It’s not as clear as it used to be.”  
Click reached out her hand and placed it on my forehead. The feelings I had roiling within me receded, like they were numbed by something, and for the first time in a long time, I felt like I could think clearly.  
“What are you…?”  
“I’m dampening your emotions. You’ll feel the same way in a few hours, but for now, you should feel calm.” She leaned back in her seat.  
“Please don’t stop. It… it’s the best I’ve felt in a long time.”  
“I’m not doing it to make you feel better. I’m doing it because you need to think clearly about what you’re going to do. Are you willing to keep going, or do you want out?”  
I stared at her. She was earnest, at the very least, and she made a good point. What was it Benjamin Sisko said? A guilty conscience is a small price to pay for the safety of the Alpha Quadrant. Maybe it’s a different scale, but for what I’d done, I’d do it again. Not gladly, but I would.  
“I’ll keep going,” I said. “I’ll live with it.”

We exited the door to House through Wayne Manor’s front doors, and once they were shut behind us, we knocked. A few minutes later, an elderly gentleman in a suit who could only be Alfred answered the door.  
He took in me and Click without so much as a flicker of an eyelid. “What can I do for you two?”  
“We need to speak to Damian,” said Click.  
“What about?” He reached behind the door. He probably had a handgun at the ready.  
“It’s about his mother,” said Click. “Talia al Ghul.”  
“I see.” Alfred stepped aside, opening the door further. “Come in.”  
He offered to take our coats, which we declined. He guided us through the ornately-paneled halls and the rich, deep carpets to one of the sitting rooms, where he had us sit while we waited for Damian. In the meantime, he served us tea, and damn if it wasn’t the best tea I’ve ever tasted. I didn’t even see him make it: one minute he was just standing there, the next he’d walked back in with a platter of tea implements.  
Damian joined us a few minutes later. He was taller than I expected, but he was around fifteen years old in this universe. That would mean he was bigger, too.  
“What do you want?” he demanded. “If you know my mother, you must know who my father is.”  
“Yes, Bruce Wayne,” I said. I must have said it too quickly, because Click gave me an odd look. “We heard they were involved, and we-”  
“An old fling,” said a familiar voice. Bruce Wayne walked into the room, wearing a red robe and holding, of all things, a pipe. His expression was different from the one he normally wore: this one was trained to look light-hearted and shallow, but with a certain intelligence to it. I can’t really do it justice, but just the way he carried himself screamed that there was no way he could be Batman. “I met Talia several years ago on one of my trips abroad. It was short, but sweet. Damian showed up several years later, and I’ve tried to do my best. What’s this about?”  
Click took a breath, and then released it without saying anything. She swallowed and tried again. “Damian, I… you may want to sit down.”  
He did. Click started talking. I motioned to Bruce to follow me out of the room, and when we were out of earshot, he immediately asked “Does she know?”  
“No. I wouldn’t tell her. She just thinks you’re Damian’s father, and that’s all.”  
He glanced back into the sitting room, then back at me. “Your friend. What is she?”  
“That’s hers to tell. Not mine.”  
“Why are you keeping my secret?”  
“I told you the first time we met. You do more good than bad. The day that changes, I’d gladly turn against you, but I don’t see that happening.”  
He was quiet for a moment. “You’ve killed Talia.”  
“I did. Her and the…” I saw a flash of her father’s head. “…the Seven Men of Death. The League is now under the control of Nyssa Raatko.”  
“Are you insane?”  
“Not my first choice, either, but then, I tried to get Talia to change sides, so maybe I gave Click the wrong idea. We’re going to keep an eye on her. She’s renamed the League to the Legion.”  
He frowned. “I’ll watch them, as well. Why did you come here?”  
“Click wanted to tell Damian about his mother. She was the one that killed Talia.”  
“How did she die?”  
“Do you really want to know?”  
“I loved Talia.” His voice was steady, but there was steel hidden in it. “She was one of two women who could possibly understand what I am and what I do. And she never let me shy away. How did she die?”  
I nodded slowly. “She took a superpower serum that granted her Superman’s powers for ten minutes, which would kill her when it was over. Click put her down before that happened.”  
“How?”  
“She blew a hole in the side of Talia’s head. Took most of her face with it.”  
“Superpowers?”  
“Not telling.”  
“I’ll find out eventually.”  
“I know. I’d just rather not feel guilty about spilling someone’s secret.”  
“I see.” He frowned. “Who’s next, then?”  
“You think I’m going to tell you? You don’t get to hear my plans, especially since you’re going to try to stop me.”  
“You seem to understand that I can’t just let you do this.”  
“And you seem to understand that I can’t just stand down.”  
We stared at one another for a moment, and then I had to look away. Even without the cape and cowl, Bruce Wayne was still terrifying. “As soon as Click’s done in there, we’ll leave you and Damian to mourn. I’m sorry we had to intrude.”  
“I’m going to stop you.”  
“I know. But when the world is ending because you let someone evil live, I’ll be there to help you. Always.”  
Click came out of the sitting room just then. Batman’s face changed back to Bruce Wayne’s. “Is he alright?” he asked Click. It was scary how fast his voice changed.  
“He will be,” Click replied. “He’s strong, like his mother. Like his father.” She nodded, and the two of us left through another door.  
***  
Batman walked back into the sitting room, and found Damian facing the fireplace. The fireplace didn’t have a fire going at the moment, so Damian’s face was shrouded and obscured. “Do you know, father?”  
“I do, Damian.”  
“They killed mother. They killed your beloved.”  
“They did.”  
“And you will not kill them?”  
“No.”  
Damian continued staring at the wall. “She’s really gone, isn’t she?”  
It wasn’t a question. “She is.”  
Damian sighed, and bowed his head. “I…” His shoulder shook.  
Bruce walked over to his son, and wrapped his arms around him.  
Damian cried into his chest as the hours ticked away.  
***  
We ended up back in House, where all the others were standing around a table House had set up. As soon as we entered, she said “Ah, good. Get in.” The door slammed behind us.  
“In a hurry much?” I asked her. “What’s all this about?”  
“Remember the Blockbusters?”  
“Kinda hard to forget.”  
“We just received word about where you landed, and where Cain fought them.”  
“That…” I glanced around the room. “What’s going on? Why are you guys so serious? Most countries have laws pertaining to superheroic actions.”  
“Not all of them,” said House. “You landed in East Hun Chiu.”  
I frowned. “That country doesn’t exist on my world. Care to explain?”  
“They’re a totalitarian dictatorship controlled by Chairman Kyung Kim. He… well, he released a statement today for the UN. Check it out.”  
A TV appeared behind her head, and I was greeted by a sour-looking man in a business suit.  
“Peoples of the world,” he began, in accented English, “we have been attacked. For years, the United States government has claimed that it does not control its superhumans, but today, you will see them proven liars and murderers. Earlier this week, one of the supposedly heroic Green Lanterns emerged through a portal on East Hun Chiu soil, and murdered several citizens in cold blood.  
“As you can see by the video we are sending with this message, she had no hesitation in what she did. Using her power ring, given her by the US government, most likely, she cut down civilians in her path. As you can also see by the video, the heroic East Hun Chiu defense force, using advanced East Hun Chiu technology, was cut down in her path as well.  
“We are not a warlike nation. We don’t want to hurt others. However, if the United States does not desist from these attacks, we will be forced to take action. Already, we are planning for the United Nations Superhero Registration Act to take control of the so-called heroes away from the corrupt governments of the world. We know this is not a popular move, but we have never been popular, or ones for what the world thinks is fair. We are doing what is right, and we will continue to fight for East Hun Chui’s safety, for the good of all the people!”  
“Then the message ends,” said House. “There was a video of Cain fighting the Blockbusters (heavily edited to look like Green Lantern doing it) and killing civilians, which was also edited. East Hun Chiu is already preparing to force the UN to register metahumans in an international database because of what’s happened.”  
“And registration is never a good idea,” I said. I was leaning against the table and biting my nails. “Damn. I didn’t want to get involved with international politics.”  
“Well, you did,” said Zhanna. “And now we have to deal with an angry dictator. Right now, there’s sympathy for East Hun Chiu, even from their neighbor, West Hun Chiu, who normally sides with the United States.”  
“Not to mention he’s sullying the good name of an actual hero,” said Michael. “And for what?”  
“Control,” said Sean. “You see, if nobody controls the supers, that means they can interfere with all the illegal stuff East Hun Chiu does (I looked it up on the internet) and the country doesn’t get their contraband. With that in place, you’ve got the United Nations diverting resources they could be using to catch international criminals on arresting people trying to help. It’d be ingenious if it wasn’t destined to fail, but they could wrap enough red tape around it to cause a serious issue.”  
“How serious?” I asked.  
“Serious enough. Batman probably wouldn’t have any problems, if he’s anything like you say, but the others may have difficulties. Of course, none of that is going to happen.”  
“How do you know that?” asked Cain. “You a seer?”  
“Nope. I’ve been doing research on this guy. He’s been experimenting on people for years, turning them into cyborgs against their will and implanting demons and the like. Nasty stuff. Right up our alley for things we don’t like.”  
“Oh,” I said. “Drat. I was hoping this step would come later.”  
“I don’t like where this is going,” said Cain.  
“The reason I know it isn’t going to happen,” said Sean, smirking, “is because we’re going to kill Chairman Kyung Kim.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, before anyone gets uppity: East Hun Chiu is not from DC Comics. It's from Designated Survivor and is HEAVILY based on North Korea. West Hun Chiu is the same way, but for South Korea. I would be lying if I said I didn't use them for that exact reason. One of the things I dislike about DC Comics (and Marvel, now that I'm getting into them) is that the universe doesn't really change. The same countries are around that are in real life, even though it'd be likely that something would happen.  
> I'm not using actual North Korea because that seems like a disaster waiting to happen. North Korea actually exists in the DC comics universe, but it's not something my writing abilities can really manage. Heavens know The Interview had enough controversy. I'd rather avoid that until I'm a better writer, so if you feel I've betrayed you, I'm sorry for the way this has turned out, and I hope you'll let me redeem myself in your eyes.  
> In summation: Octagon is going to try to assassinate a global leader. Also, I hate spelling assassinate, assassin, and assassination. My left-hand hurts after every "assass".


	18. Frenetic Motion

“And how are you going to do that?” asked Lee.  
Sean smirked. “Ah, but that’s the secret, no? I’m an assassin, lad, and I get to show off the way I’m going to kill him. But it’s all ruined if I give the surprise away now. I need some privacy to plan, and then I’ll get back to you.”  
Sean walked away, his hands in his pockets, the very picture of smug confidence. It was a look he carefully calculated over the years to irritate people. House moved the table to another room, where he had all his notes laid out and pictures on a pegboard on the wall. He sat against the table and stared at the wall.  
“You have no idea what you’re planning, do you?”  
Sean grinned and turned to face Zhanna. “Trying to be sneaky doesn’t work when you weigh-”  
“Finish that sentence and die.”  
“Wouldn’t be the first time.”  
“And I wouldn’t make it the last.”  
“You’re kind’ve a psycho, you know that?”  
“Pot, meet kettle.”  
“I would very much like to meet you.”  
“Over dinner perhaps?”  
“You buying?”  
“Shouldn’t you?”  
“We could skip dinner.”  
“Are you inviting me to bed?”  
“Maybe not right now. Right now, we have an assassination to plan.”  
“You really know how to show a girl a good time.”  
“Don’t belittle yourself. You’re at least a woman.”  
“Flattery won’t get you anywhere.”  
“On the contrary, you can use flattery to get EVERYWHERE. Such as into a throne room of the king and queen.”  
“Not really. If you have two guards of opposing dispositions, they’ll keep each other in check by virtue of not liking each other.”  
“That…” Sean paused. “That’s a good point.”  
“My mother and father were both unpopular leaders from isolationist cultures who chose to expand and marry outside the norm. We dealt with a fair number of assassination attempts in our day.”  
“Interesting… let’s start simple. Poisoned drink? I take it you had royal taste-testers?”  
“Pre-made antidotes. We had a Gargarean healer on-hand with extensive knowledge of poisons and their symptoms. It allowed us to pinpoint exactly what poisons were being used and, more importantly, who was buying them.”  
“Interesting workaround. Alright, then: assassins in the bedroom.”  
“Guns or knives?”  
“Fascinating. Let’s say guns.”  
“Most ammunition doesn’t work on either Gargareans or Atlanteans. Multiple bedrooms will take care of the larger ammunition problem, and if you sweep the bedrooms with guards as night you’ll catch the assassins.”  
“But they could get away if you wait too long.”  
“They’re wherever they are because they think they have to wait a long time. It’ll be awhile before they get suspicious we’re onto them.”  
“It’s still not really proactive.”  
“What do you expect? You deal with most assassinations by being good rulers. You deal with another portion by being nice to the people around you without wanting anything in return. And you deal further by knowing exactly who’s working for you, what’s going on in their lives, and their levels of connection to dissident factions. And you deal with assassins beyond that by training your guards, getting them to like you, and keeping them on their toes within reasonable limits.”  
Sean snapped his fingers. “That’s it.”  
“What’s it? I made a good point?”  
“No, you’ve made several. You’re extremely helpful. The thing I’m thinking of is that last thing you said: within reasonable limits. Tell me, did any of your subjects think of you or your parents as gods?”  
“Not usually, and we discouraged that kind of thing.”  
“But chairman Kyung Kim, his people think of him as a deity. Not the big one, mind (their two main religions are Christianity and Buddhism) but enough that they adore him. Everyone’s extremely eager to please, and that sets them on edge.”  
“Right. Gargareans always got anxious around Aiora, Bouphonia and the like, especially the guards who had to work on those days. And the Atlanteans were particularly tense during a total eclipse, which signified destruction and chaos in the old religions.”  
“Exactly. How do you think some Muslim soldiers would feel guarding Muhammad? Or if Christian soldiers were guarding Jesus? It’s got to be a rigid, heavy-handed form of discipline over there. There’s no room for errors, ever.” Sean popped his knuckles. “Granted, this also means there will be a heavy guard around the clock, with the best weapons they can muster and all the fancy gadgets and cameras that make assassination so difficult in the modern era.”  
“How do you know that?”  
“Field research. I’ve taken to stealing a dollar from the biggest banks in the world.”  
“Literally just a dollar?”  
“Do you have any idea how hilarious it is to have security guys and the big brass and several experts coming to a bank to watch security tapes and try to figure out how someone stole a dollar?”  
“Okay, that’d be pretty funny. I think there was one occasion where a guy broke into the royal palace just to paint one of the tines on her trident pink. We have no idea who it was or why they did it.”  
“Maybe it was your version of me.”  
“Not unlikely.”  
There was a moment of silence while the implications of this set in.  
“Probably not.”  
“Yeah, I can’t breathe underwater. It’s probably some other charming thief/assassin.”  
“You’ve got to get that straight.”  
“I branched out.” Sean smirked, but his expression grew serious. “Getting back on-topic, we still don’t have a solid plan to take out Kyung Kim.”  
“Beyond ‘annoy them all to death’.”  
“Yes, beyond that. We have two rules for this undertaking: kill no innocents and don’t let it come back to us.”  
“Because the governments of the world wouldn’t like us assassinating a world leader.”  
“They tend to get upset with that.”  
“They do.”  
“Okay, now it’s my turn: how do YOU know that?”  
“We were at war. The American Empire started getting uppity about how they only had North and South America under their belt and came for Atlantis and Themyscira. We killed the emperor and his associates. They didn’t take well to it and collapsed into infighting.”  
“Let’s hope we have a similar reaction.”  
“Will we?”  
“Why would you help me plan if you thought it wouldn’t get us what we want?”  
“Hey, I’m onboard. It’s just that a large coalition from the American Empire came after us, and a lot more people died. We want to get this guy outta the picture, right? Killing him makes him a martyr.”  
“Ah, yes. The most dangerous dead man.”  
“Besides Deadman, but we can ignore him for now. This means we need to change the second rule: make it look like an accident.”  
Sean nodded. Then he grinned. “Say, if we’re going to make the staff even more stressed, perhaps it would be too much for him. Perhaps his heart gives out?”  
“How do we go about that? A heart doesn’t just fail.”  
“I forget how absurdly strong Atlanteans are. We’re going to give him a heart attack. You can do it by injecting someone with a syringe full of air between the toes.”  
“But we have to get close.”  
“And we will. We just need to scope out what Kyung Kim’s house looks like.”  
“Yes, just break into the Bay of Chiu, sneak into the house of a man who’s worshipped as a god, and make his death look like an accident. What could possibly go wrong?”

“That is a big house.”  
“Really? I thought it was just the way it stretches from one edge of your vision to the other, but if YOU say it’s a big building-”  
“Knock it off, Zhanna. I wasn’t expecting Kyung Kim’s house to be four stories tall and have a guard at every window.”  
“Are you really a good thief/assassin, then?”  
“Of course I am. You learn to expect the unexpected when doing this stuff.”  
“Then why were you so surprised?”  
“I’m surprised because getting through to this place was a cinch. They don’t have any magical defenses at all.”  
“Would you expect them to?”  
“You know as well as I do what House looked up about this guy.”  
“The fact he makes deals with demons proves nothing.”  
“It makes me uneasy. Think about it: if you have psychic powers, you’d be more resistant to psychic attacks. You create defenses where you know you’re strong.”  
“Ah. You’re wondering if we’re being let in.”  
“Yeah.” Sean popped his knuckles. “This whole thing stinks. Well, nothing to it. The guards are watching every entrance closely and given I’m white and you’re middle-ish-brown, we stand out like a sore thumb. Satellites are likely watching the roof, and so we can’t hide out up there. We might have a way to get around this, but it’ll require House’s help.”  
“I think she’s willing to.”  
“I know she is. I just need to know the layout of the house.” ‘House?’  
‘What.’  
‘Would you please access Zhanna’s and my eyes and record everything we’re about to see?’  
‘Done. What are you going to see?’  
‘We’re going to run through a despot’s house.’  
‘Okay. Let me know when you need an out.’  
Sean cracked his knuckles. “Alright… I’m gonna lose an arm for this, but it’ll be totally worth it.”  
“Why do you say that?”  
“You ever hear of the island of Yap?”

The guard standing at the door was unprepared for a giant disk of stone smashing through the door. They were further unprepared when a man came through, said “Yoink!” and ran off with their automatic rifles.  
It was when he was a few feet away they had the sense of mind to draw their pistols and take aim, but by that time he was gone.  
Sean made a mad dash around the mansion, taking as many glances around as he could for fear of his safety and for House. He wove around guards and soldiers, snatching their weapons when they weren’t looking and breaking them while he ran. He encountered more than a few lovely pieces of gold and several gems in some of the rooms he broke into, but by the time he got to the fifth bathroom on his side of the house, they were closing in on him.  
‘House, you see this door I’m running towards?’  
‘Looks like a storage closet.’  
‘That’s my exit. Can you make it look super creepy?’  
‘Of course.’  
Sean opened the door just as the first bullet hit the white plaster above his head.  
A whirling void of black and green sat on the other side. The door was lined with teeth, and a low rumbling noise emanated from somewhere within. A voice whispered at a screaming pitch to come in, to taste what THEY had to offer, and then Sean stepped into House’s library.  
“That was freaky.”  
House smirked. “You said to make it creepy.”  
“I just hope those guys don’t get too much psychological damage from this. It’d be mean.”  
“You’re going to kill their leader.”  
“Meaner. That’s what I meant. They might even thank me for that, given time, but they’re going to hate me at first.”  
“I can’t imagine why.”  
The door swung open again, and Zhanna dove in, bullets whizzing over her head. “That was fun, but unproductive.” She dumped out a bag full of various goodies. “What next?”  
“Are those watches?”  
“I’m bulletproof. I had to steal SOMETHING from them.”  
“Mostly cheap imitations, not worth – Oh, hey, that’s an actual Rolex. Nice”  
“Thanks. What’s next?”  
“Next we set up a live feed of Kyung’s house.”  
“Can’t do that,” said House.  
“Why not?”  
“I’ve told you before: I improvise your position based on where you say you are and Google Maps, as well as a heaping helping of satellite feeds that I access via the internet. I can’t just watch this guy’s house. Granted, I can do this.” House held out her hand, and a top-down view of the mansion appeared, and then extruded to become a 3D model. “These are made from the memories you took while you ran through the house. I can give you a still image, but nothing live.”  
“Bother. That’s a pity. I was hoping for live footage.” Sean frowned. “Well, we have a start to my plan. Do you think you can shuffle the function of the doors every few minutes?”  
“Sure. Not hard.”  
“Great. See if you can get a random-number generator on that. It’s better if they’re not able to predict you. In the meantime, do you know a location where we can get spy cameras?”  
“There’s several on Amazon you can buy. $40 apiece.”  
“That’s a shame. Where could we possibly get the money for that?” Sean paused and stared into the middle-distance, and then turned a bit of fat into several coins. “Oh, wait. I’m a rare coin dealer. Good price off of rare coins, today only.”  
“Oh, good. I was worried we’d have to sell our take.”  
“We’re not barbarians, although it will take some time to sell the coins. In the meantime, we’ll just have to watch the house and see what happens. Maybe release some rats in the house, just to mess with them.”  
“Maybe we should mess with the plumbing. That would make Mr. Chairman stressed, right?”  
“Ooh! Or we could-”  
“I take it you’re trying to stress out Kyung Kim?” said House.  
“That’s it,” Zhanna replied.  
“Hm. Are you going to kill him or let him die?”  
“We’re going to have an active part in it, but we need to make it look like an accident.”  
“I see. Rest assured, I will make the entirety of the staff stressed. There’s a space between door openings I can use to watch them.” House grinned from ear to ear as she popped her knuckles. “Oh, this is going to be such fun. I haven’t been able to toy with anyone since Lee let everyone out.”  
“I remember,” said Sean. “I was one of those people.”  
“Ah. Sorry.” House vanished without another word.  
“Did she really like to toy with you?”  
“Sometimes. She usually left me alone because I didn’t play along, but guys with names like ‘Bloodrender’ and ‘Bringer of Despair’ would get pissed at her and she loved that.”  
“She’s kinda scary when you think about it. Who spends several thousand years holding evil creatures at bay without being changed by that?”  
“Nobody. And nobody’s held without being changed.”  
“You wanna talk about it?”  
“Not really. My personal problems are my own. I assume yours are, too?”  
“Hell yes. Stay out of my personal space.”  
“Fantastic. We understand each other. Let’s go sell some rare coins and then get shit-faced.”  
“Don’t we have to buy some cameras?”  
“What, you’re gonna be a wet blanket about it? We’ll have enough money left over to get drunk.”  
“I mean, if you insist.”

“How long’s it been?”  
“I dunno… like, three weeks?”  
“So, how many cameras did we buy?”  
“I don’t know, Zhanna. Like, a hundred or something.”  
“Really?”  
“Really really. Just because I’ve got five hands doesn’t mean I can’t count.”  
“You have five hands? Where are you?”  
“Over here. I’m hovering over the…” Sean turned to the bartender. “What number is this?”  
“Seventh,” said the bartender.  
“Wowza, I can hold my liquor.” Sean’s head slammed against the bar. “Could you stop spinning the restaurant?”  
“It’s a bar. Maybe you should call it a night? I’m cutting you off, anyway.” The bartender slid a bowl of peanuts over to Sean and Zhanna along with a pitcher of water and two glasses. “They’re salty. Be careful.”  
“Eh, screw you,” Sean replied. He’d have said it louder than a low mumble, except that his head was pounding. “Why is it so hard to drink?”  
“Speak for yourself. You got us cut off and I’m barely feeling a buzz.”  
“Is that why you’re swaying in your seat?”  
“Shaddup.”  
The two of them sat still on their stools, listening to the sounds of the last few people left in the bar. Mostly people who didn’t have to work during the week, or those who did but were about to lose their jobs. It was late, around two in the morning. Or was that early? Probably early.  
“Is this the part where we talk about our feelings?” asked Zhanna.  
“Why do you keep bringing that up?”  
“My mother couldn’t go a day without talking about how she was feeling. It got real annoying real quick.”  
“Why even bring it up?”  
“We drink for two reasons: to complain and to share our feelings. I’m doing both at once.”  
Sean rolled his beer glass back and forth across the countertop. “Alright, fine. I’ll talk. You’ve been prying all day for this, so I might as well tell you. I’m pretty useless on the team.”  
“Are you?”  
“Yep. I’m the money. I’m the assassin. But as soon as someone more powerful shows up, I’m useless. I can’t even take on Slade Wilson.”  
“He had lots of guns.”  
“Even so. Most of us are bulletproof. Me, I get shot and I have to have a lie-down. I still have bullet scars.” Sean stared at his glass. “I don’t even want to be here. I got roped in by guilt.”  
“Same here, buddy.”  
“I want out. I don’t want to be here.”  
The words were out of his mouth before he’d finished thinking them through. He just sat there, hearing them echo in his mind over and over.  
“I don’t want to be here,” he said again. He took a deep breath. “God, that’s refreshing. It’s been brewing in my head for a while, now. Why am I even here? I’m only a part of the club because I happened to be nearby.”  
“Yep.”  
“And I’m only here now because I don’t really have anywhere else to go. Or at least, I think I don’t.” He sighed. “God, this again. I didn’t belong as a fighter, so now I’m an assassin. I don’t like being an assassin, so I want to leave. I’m pathetic. I’m out of booze. I want to go home.” A brief pause ensued. “I don’t know where my home is.”  
“That’s rough, buddy.” Zhanna downed the rest of her drink. “That’s not all, is it?”  
“No. Something’s bothering me about this business with Chairman Kyung Kim. Killing him isn’t going to make things better. You can’t run a country with a single man.”  
“Sure you can. Both my parents were monarchs.”  
“Didn’t they have generals? Politicians and staff, people who worked for them and managed affairs? No. Something more is going on. Assassinating one person isn’t going to remove the problem of East Hun Chiu. Not completely. We turn him into a martyr, regardless of blame, and the country keeps going the same direction it’s been going for oh-so-many years.” He frowned and folded his hands. “It all starts with the country’s actions. You know about them, right?”  
“Yeah. Brainwashing citizens, nuclear action threats, and even some demonic utilization. Bad stuff.”  
“Yeah. But you can’t do all that on a single demonic deal and last for two decades in power. He’s got a serious connection, I think.”  
“Maybe a demon’s got him, or something.”  
“Maybe. Maybe not. We won’t know for certain unless we ask him, and we will never know if we kill him. We need to try something else.”  
“Like what?”  
Sean stared at a coin in his palm. “Maybe I just need to try being a little more flexible.” He grinned. “Hey, I’ve got a great way to bring all of this together.”  
***  
“Kyung Kim.”  
The voice speaking to his eminence was in Korean, with a European accent. Kim awoke instantly and drew a pistol from under his pillow. “Die, foreign sc-”  
A hand grabbed his arm, and another grabbed his gun, and a third grabbed his wrist. They were all right hands. There was only one figure in shadows before him.  
“What… what are you?”  
“A nightmare. Merely a nightmare.” The figure grinned. He had glowing green canines. “But I’m a nightmare that can hurt you. So, I’m here to remove fingers for your lies.”  
“I don’t know what-”  
“Lying already, I see.” The figure dropped the gun hand and used it to rip off Kyung Kim’s left pinky.  
He was screaming, but the shadowed figure didn’t seem to care. “That’s for what you just said. This is for framing Green Lantern. This for saying people had died. This for claiming those Blockbusters were your soldiers.” With every comment, another of Kim’s fingers were removed, until it was only a thumb on his left hand left. “Well, the thumb counts as a finger, I think. This for-”  
“What do you want?!” Kim screeched.  
“Want? I want your demonic connection. You’re small-time. Your country isn’t big enough to be a threat on the world scale, like you want. Which means you have help. Give me that name.”  
“I… I can’t. You don’t know what he’ll do to me.”  
“I know exactly what he’ll do to you. And as much as I hate to say it, I’m going to help save you from him. Name. Now.”  
Kyung Kim stared at the figure before him, barely visible in the early-morning light, his teeth glowing green, his eyes glowing red. And he knew, in his heart of hearts, that if he didn’t help this man, he would die, and this man would kill him. This six-armed freak would… would…  
“Neron,” said Kim. “His name is Neron.”  
A bout of green flame erupted behind the mysterious figure, illuminating him in light and revealing his grotesqueries in pale green perfection. Then Kyung Kim fainted.  
Sean stood up and faced the green light. Neron stood there, green flames burning the walls and illuminating him. He wore a green cape with spikes at the shoulders, and a large golden ring with a glowing green circle in the middle. He had utterly flawless blonde hair and striking brown eyes. There was enough white in his costume to make his skin look dark, even though he would normally be described as white.  
Memories popped unbidden into Sean’s head. This was a man who’d created his fair share of supervillains. He was a fallen angel, a creature who disguised himself as a beautiful man when in truth he was an ugly, green, amorphous thing that sucked up souls and loved to torture the damned. You could say he was as bad as Lucifer, except the devil was currently running a bar in Los Angeles and almost being harmless.  
“Oh, you again?” Neron sighed. “Honestly, the last time was so tedious, I don’t know why you bothered to summon me again. Apart from beating up Kyung Kim over there: that is fun.”  
“Well, this isn’t quite like last time,” said Sean. “I’m here to kill you.”  
“You’re here…? You can’t be serious.”  
“I am serious.”  
“Are you going to ask me to not call you Shirley?”  
“No, that’s dumb. You didn’t say that.”  
“Some people love their quotes.”  
“I’m surprised you even saw that movie.”  
“Really? Are you that surprised? You knew I liked plays and productions, and you know I tried to go to them, even after you lost your divine perch. It’s no surprise I like movies, as well. But enough of serious business: it’s time for a game.”  
“No games. I’m here to kill you.”  
“Seriously going on with that? And how in the world could you possibly-” A knife blade emerged from Neron’s chest. Neron stared at it, and then at Sean. “Seriously? You know how I am about knives. So distasteful.”  
“Well, there goes the holy silver option,” said Sean. “There are others.”  
Several more knives punctured Neron’s chest. They were made of a variety of materials, and each had several different runes carved into them that supposedly killed evil.  
None of it fazed Neron. “Please. As if a few toothpicks could harm me.” He snapped his fingers, and the walls of the room rippled and bent, grabbing something from behind the window curtains and wrapping tightly around it. The rooms swelled until the bundle in the walls was next to Neron, turning into Zhanna with several knives in her hands. “Did you really think that would kill me? I’m an angel, dear. Fallen angel, but angel nonetheless. Honestly, this whole situation screams of ‘not doing your homework’, and that’s not like you.”  
“What do you know about me?” asked Sean. “How do you know me?”  
“You? Do… do you really not remember?” Neron laughed. “Gods! You really don’t remember! Oh, man! You were a god! Not like these new gods, but one of the old gods! Human sacrifices and holy orgies and everything! A true classic! And you don’t remember any of that?” Neron laughed again. “You’re a greater fool than I thought, to give up all that knowledge and power.”  
“Wasn’t willing,” said Sean. “I have a hole in my head further back than three hundred years.”  
“Ye gads, what a tiny life to remember. I can give it back to you, Airgeadra. I can return your memories and divinity to you in exchange for a… small price.”  
“As if I would-”  
“You want to know of your home, yes?”  
Sean paused. It was tempting. “My home?”  
“Where you were born. A small town in the British Isles, nothing worth mentioning beyond the birth of an old god. The town is long-gone, but its legacy remains with you. All I need is this creature I have entangled in the wall, and I will return this all to you.”  
Sean clenched his fists. “I’ll admit it’s tempting,” he said. “You make it sound so simple yet deals like this aren’t offered for no reason. If it seems advantageous, it’s because you haven’t looked at it from every angle.” He grinned. “Besides, I had to stall you.”  
An iron cage enclosed Neron. The wall fell apart and dropped Zhanna. “What’s this?!” demanded Neron.  
“Well,” said Sean, as the illusion of Kyung Kim’s house rippled and melted away to reveal House’s library, “we had a little something concocted just for you.”  
“What is this place?! What have you done?!”  
“This is the House of Horrors, nicknamed House by people who stand her.”  
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” said House. She appeared behind Sean and folded her arms.  
“You’re welcome. She’ll be your warden while she’s here. She’s going to hold you in captivity until she figures out how to kill you. In the meantime, she’s going to torment you like those you trick. Have fun!”  
“Wait, no-” And then the Lord of Hell was gone.  
Sean turned back to the bed where Kyung Kim still lay, and slapped him a few times until he woke up. It was easier now that he had six arms. “Hi, there, chairman.”  
“What… where am I?”  
“You’re in a secret pocket dimension, but that’s not important right now. What is important is this: We have Neron in our custody.”  
Kyung’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “You’re lying.”  
“Why would I lie about that? If I was, he’d come after me for mocking him.”  
Kyung scoffed at Sean, but when he saw his face his expression turned to one of horror. “You… you really do have him. That means…”  
“We have your soul.”  
Chairman Kyung Kim swallowed hard. “What must I do?”  
“Simple: Make your country better for everyone. Not just yourself.”  
“That could take years… decades of work…”  
“Luckily for you, I’m immortal, so I’ll be able to watch your progress.” Sean smiled. His teeth were still glowing. “Don’t fuck up. I’m always watching. Okay?”  
“O… okay.”  
“Great. Bye!” In a whirl of swirling blue energy and arcane noises like whispers, Kyung was ejected from House and back into his own house. Sean stared at the spot where Kyung had been, and then crossed his arms, put them on his hips and placed them behind his head. “Hey… I could get used to these many arms.”  
“What the FUCK was that?!” Zhanna demanded.  
“That? That was my plan.”  
“What kind of a plan was that?”  
“A thorough one.” Sean ticked off the points of his discussion as he spoke. “First, we had to remove Kyung Kim as an obstacle. Killing him would continue his work without him. Removing him from power creates a vacuum those around him could use as well. He needed to be alive, but to change his mind. To do that, we needed leverage. We knew he was making deals with demons, but he was keeping that secret. There’s our leverage. They have his soul. The question is, how do we get his soul?  
“Simple, really: we find out which demon has his soul. Not a simple matter to execute, but an easy goal. To do this, we put him in a frame of mind where he’s frayed, ready to talk at a moment’s notice. When he’s tired after a long period of having the doors shuffled at his house, and he’s about to go to bed, then he’s ready.  
“Scaring him is a necessary tactic, to unnerve him right before he tells me the demon’s name. He has to tell me in a location where I can trap the demon, if need be, and I have weapons that have the possibility of killing the demon. Hence, we’re in House, where she has Neron trapped and the mission is done.” Sean stared at all his hands. “Wow, fourteen points. I’m glad I had enough hands for it.”  
“I thought the plan was to fake his heart attack.” Zhanna folded her arms and frowned. “Are you saying you had a different plan all along?”  
Sean grinned. “Zhanna, I had SIX plans all along. A plan for if you didn’t want to help me. A plan if Kyung was the victim. A plan if someone else was making demon deals. A plan for if I couldn’t make extra body parts. And a plan for if one of us got shot running through Kyung’s house.” Sean spread all his hands out. “I work in chaos. You can’t make something happen if normalcy prevents it. You have to shake things up.”  
“Is that why you lied to me?”  
“Yes.”  
Her expression was shocked, but only for a moment. It switched to one of anger a moment later. “I don’t like being lied to.”  
“That’s fair.”  
“Are you even going to defend your actions?”  
“Why? I’m a thief and a killer, among other thieves and killers. As much as we hide behind a veneer of morality, that’s what we are. No getting around it.”  
Sean saw stars for a moment. When his vision cleared, he saw Zhanna with her hand outstretched in a fist, and his face hurt.  
“You… I thought you were different. I thought you understood what was going on here was insane. I though…” She shook her head and grit her teeth. “You’re an idiot. You go on like you’re only doing this to get what you want, but you’re just as willing to die on this fool’s errand as everyone else. I won’t have it.” She stalked off. “I’m leaving. Don’t try to contact me.”  
Sean watched her walk off. A part of him was yelling at him to go after her, apologize for what he’d done, say she was right, make up. Another part of him, the sensible part of him, was saying to stay put and let this play out. And between them both, he felt numb.  
***  
The next day, the news was showing a sudden report from the UN. East Hun Chiu had asked to make an announcement to the world, something that was only logical when you considered the enormous backlash accusing a famous superhero of murder would get you. However, it was odd that it was so long after the initial accusation, almost a month afterward.  
The cameras were rolling as Kyung Kim stepped up to the podium. A few of them focused on his left hand, bandaged and with new cybernetic fingers that weren’t there at his last announcement. He stepped up to the podium. A few cameras noticed his hands were perfectly still, whereas last time he’d spoken they’d waved with emphasis to his words. Almost all of them caught President Han, leader of West Hun Chiu, sitting behind Kyung Kim with her hands in her lap.  
“I am a liar,” he said into the microphone. “It is to my great shame that I attempted to frame the hero Green Lantern for crimes which were my own.” He stared at his hand for a moment. “I have been a criminal for as long as I have been in office. I have mistreated my people and caused no small amount of suffering for my neighbors. Therefore, I have been working with my neighbor and colleague President Han to reestablish Hun Chiu as a united nation, under the current government of West Hun Chiu. It will be a hard road, but it will be a better country for everyone.” He sighed. “I am ready for questions, now.”  
The TV shut off. Teth-Adam stared at the blank screen and folded his hands. To think that any hero would finally stoop to interfering with another country’s business. They were getting bolder. Who knew but before they came for his country, as well?  
Such a thing should not come to pass. He would protect Kahndaq no matter the cost.  
He stood and marched out onto his balcony, staring down at the ancient buildings of his city combining with the modern conveniences of today. Teth-Adam would not stand for it. He would hunt down these heroes, this Octogon, and destroy them all. Perhaps they would take some time to find, but he need only utter one word, and the thunder would bring him all the power he needed. The power of Shazam.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to need to break Sean, I think. He's a bit too boring right now.


	19. Slices of Lives

It was with great trepidation that the news released the top story for the day.  
The anchorman looked uncomfortable at the thought of having to announce the news. His cohost looked uncomfortable and fearful in equal parts, and she made a habit of chewing her nails, though she thought she’d broken the habit years before. The cameraman on for the day was regretting taking over for his sick coworker. When the cameras did start rolling, almost everyone watching immediately noticed the discomfort in the air as the anchorman started reading the news.  
“…and our top story for the evening: Arthur Light, better known as the supervillain Doctor Light, has escaped from police custody.”  
***  
Star was in Cain’s body again. The outside world was bright and ready for her, and the sunny day was just perfect for her to get an ice cream cone. She’d tried a lot of things in Cain’s body, but the best had always been ice cream. The second-best was definitely carrots, and the third was sprinkles on bagels.  
Today’s choice of ice cream was strawberry milkshake. It amazed her that you could take a milkshake, practically ice cream itself, and turn that into an ice cream flavor. Truly, the methods the modern world for delectable delights were a wonder to behold.  
Sean was getting a lemon-flavored ice cream bowl. His extra arms were hidden under the trench coat (technically duster, as he pointed out) he wore, even though it was hot. He refused to get rid of the extra arms, and he was currently wearing sunglasses to prevent people from noticing his glowing eyes.  
“How did you manage to make your eyes glow, anyway?” asked Star.  
“Simple: I just made them the same kind of material as glowing fish and the like. I can manipulate my body mass as long as I change it into coins, first.”  
“So, you’re like a knockoff of Click?”  
“How rude. I’m at least three times wealthier than Click.”  
“Three times zero is still zero.”  
“You wound me.”  
“Cool.” Star took a bite out of her scoop of ice cream. “Why did you come with me?”  
“Because I wanted to get out for a while. The house is…well, to be frank, House is kinda creepy to me.”  
“Like a voyeur?”  
“Yeah, same sorta thing. She’s just… always watching us, y’know?”  
“She hasn’t done anything.”  
“Anything OBVIOUS, anyway.”  
“Dude… it’s House. She’s basically harmless.”  
“Sure she is. She kept me imprisoned for several hundred years, but sure, she’s ‘basically harmless’.”  
“She was also a prisoner of a deal with Felix Faust for several hundred years, as much as you were of her. I think you could stand to be nicer to her.”  
“I will not be nicer to her. Not until she’s nicer to me.”  
“Ah, the cycle continues.”  
***  
From the shadows, the man who could control light watched the two of them, and the young woman especially, with a perverted eagerness. His name was Arthur, but he was better known by his moniker Doctor Light. Those two, now, they were almost completely separated from the rest of the crowd. They were headed towards that back alleyway, and if he timed it right, he could knock out the man and take the woman for himself.  
It excited him to no small amount. After spending so much time in prison, where the only meat to get is men, you get excited for the potential of having a good session again. He licked his lips in anticipation. It was time.  
Doctor Light pointed his fingers and fired off a bolt of light directly at the man’s head.  
***  
“…and that’s why you should turn against her.”  
“I will not!” said Star. She saw a beam of light coming from a ragged man in the alleyway and deflected it with a construct from her ring, sending it straight back at him and through his head. “Did you… who is that?”  
“I dunno,” said Sean. “Some creepy. Kinda looks familiar, but his head’s all bashed in. You can’t really see his face.”  
“I wonder if Lee would know,” said Star. “See, he’s got that emblem, there.”  
“Hold on.” Sean produced a smart phone from his person. “There. I’ve got a pic of it. We’ll show it to Lee when we get back.”  
“Cool.” The door opened to reveal the library. “Hey, Lee!”  
The man in question placed a bookmark in the book he was reading and looked up. “Hm?”  
“Some guy with light powers tried to kill us. He’s dead, now, but we don’t know who he is.”  
“Light? Suspicious. What’d he look like?”  
Sean held up his phone. “He had this symbol on his chest.”  
“Oh, I…” Lee frowned. “He’s dead?”  
“Very dead,” Star clarified.  
“Oh. Good.” Lee scratched his chin. “Yes, very good. One of the worst.” He frowned. “And you just… ran into him?”  
“Yeah. He was walking down the street and tried to attack me.”  
“…weird.” Lee frowned harder. “Well, at least he’s dead. It just… it’s a bit anticlimactic, you know?”  
“Why?”  
“He was a big threat in the comics. The whole League wiped his memories at one point because he was so dangerous. He was also one of the most terrible people in the world, so I don’t, and you shouldn’t, feel any sympathy for him. And to have him die like that, it’s… it’s like Hitler turning out to be alive and then slipping on a banana peel and dying.”  
“Is that a bad thing?”  
“…no. Okay, you kids take the rest of the day off. You’ve earned it.”  
“Thanks, boss!” said Star with a mock salute. “See you around!”  
Lee scratched his head and went back to his book.  
“Well, what now?” asked Sean.  
“Chess?”  
“I thought you’d never ask.”  
***  
“And… what, exactly, is a movie theater?” asked Michael.  
“You don’t know?” asked Click, oblivious to the stares she and Michael received from the people around them. She grinned. “You’re in for a treat. They take stories and make them into things that anyone can watch any number of times exactly the same way.”  
“Exactly the same?” Michael scratched his beard and frowned. “But what if the storyteller wants to try something new, or wants to add details?”  
“You can’t. It’s like books. The story is the same every time.”  
“Does that make for a good story, though?”  
“Just… come watch, okay?”  
“Alright, then.”

“Why is it so dusty everywhere?”  
“That’s part of the plot. That will be explained later.”  
“Why later? Are they in a desert? Why are there so many cars? Did that man just eat a lizard?”  
“Shut up in front!” said a voice from behind. “You with the demon’s horns, take those off! They’re in the way!”  
Michael stood up and turned to face the voice. “I cannot take them off without hurting my head. I am sorry, but we will have to live with them. You may be thankful that my wings are not so cumbersome to deal with.”  
“Okay, jeez, man, sorry.”  
Michael sat back down and continued watching the movie. “Oh, I see. The world has grown hotter, and all the water is gone.”  
“That’s it.”  
“This is very exciting. Their cars are moving very fast. I can see why you like these: no storyteller could fully capture the speed and movement of these cars. Interesting.”  
For several minutes, they watched the movie in near-silence. Michael had the occasional habit of hissing at the pasty villain when he walked onscreen and clapped every time he saw the hero. The heroine intrigued him, but she quickly became his favorite character when he saw the depths of her heroic nature. Then the cars started rolling, and the chase was on. The heroes traveled through a dust storm, and then they started fighting, quick and brutal. It was madness, the heroes fighting. It was-  
They should kill the other.  
No, they shouldn’t! They need to work together!  
She hit him with her gun. Shoot her in the head. Splatter her brains out on the sand. Crush her. Make her broken. Break all the-  
Michael stood and ran out of the theater, followed closely behind by a concerned Click, asking him if he was okay with a voice that seemed a million miles away. He slumped against a wall, running his hands through his hair, panting and gritting his teeth.  
“Get away,” he mumbled. “Please, Click, go away.”  
“Michael, what’s wrong? You got angry and happy and scared and sad all at once. What are you doing?”  
“I’m…” Michael rubbed his faced and his eyes. “I can’t… It’s not me.”  
“Michael, you can tell me these things. I can feel you hurting right now. Please, Michael… you’re scaring me.”  
“I…” Michael stared at the corner where the floor met the wall. It was easier than looking into her eyes. “…I miss it.” He hugged his arms about him. “I miss the fight. I miss the kill, and the hunt, and everything that turned me into a demon. I was… I was good at it, and little else.” He curled his hands into fists, and then let them go. “And yet, every part of me is screaming to get out, to kill something, to strangle it with my bare hands and to…” He shut his eyes and forced those feelings away. “I just miss it.”  
Click nodded, and sat down next to Michael. “I’m sorry.”  
“Please… don’t be. I haven’t spoken to anyone of this.” Michael turned and leaned back against the wall. “So much of my life was consumed by fighting and hunting… without it, I don’t know what I am.”  
Click smiled. “Well, that’s easy to figure out. You just have to try stuff until you like something.”  
“You make it sound feasible, certainly.”  
“It’s not that hard! Like…” She grinned. “Come with me.” She grabbed him by the arm and hoisted him to his feet. “You’ve gotta try something.”  
“Is it food?” Good heavens, she was strong. He kept forgetting her parentage and powers.  
“No, it’s this way, a couple blocks down. You’re gonna love it.”

“What is this place?”  
“This is a swing dance hall. It’s been here a while, so the wooden floors smell of food and alcohol and sweat, and the floorboards squeak, and it’s mostly old people. But, they do have dancing lessons every Thursday night, and anyone is welcome.”  
“Dancing? Click, if you think I have not danced, you have obviously never been to Africa. I have danced many times.”  
“When recently?”  
Michael had no response. The sharpness of that rebuke took away his voice.  
“Michael, you can’t stuff those parts of you away. You keep pushing at all that anger and sadness, but you keep pushing away joy, too. You have to be happy sometimes. Otherwise… what point is there to keep living?” She took his hands. “And maybe you won’t like dancing as much, but think of it as a different kind of hunt. Could you do that, at least for me?”  
Michael stared into the large, open dance floor. “Maybe not for you,” he said at last, “but I will try to live for me.”  
Click smiled at him. “That will be enough.”  
***  
Sean sat behind the interrogation table with all six of his hands cuffed to the table. The man staring at him from across the desk had a mustache and glasses, while the man standing behind him trying to be intimidating had a donut and a second chin. Both wore button-up shirts with concealed carry holsters on their chests, and badges on their hips. Commissioner Gordon and Detective Harvey Bullock. Unfortunately for both of them, they were going to have to sort through the mess Sean had made, however accidental.  
“So,” said Gordon, “let’s take it from the top.”  
“Alright.” Sean spread out his hands as much as he could. “It all started when I was performing for the orphans.”  
“Do you have an official employment there?”  
“No, but I know the proprietress of the orphanage.”  
“How?”  
“We’ve slept together a few times.”  
Gordon pinched the bridge of his nose. “Romantically linked. Understood. And you met her how?”  
“Bowling.”  
“You went bowling.”  
“No, she went bowling. I was just there to take care of a demonic infestation.”  
“Do you do this often?”  
“Fairly often. This was supposed to be routine. I met her there, and we were ‘romantically linked’ within a couple hours.”  
“Jiminy Christmas, this guy,” said Bullock, rubbing his temple.  
Gordon pressed on. “And you had no idea at the time that the proprietress of the orphanage was the one responsible for the demonic infestations?”  
“Honestly? Not really. One of the kids started developing superpowers, and that kinda took my attention.”  
“What kind of powers?”  
“He can turn gravity onto another surface. Every other object in the orphanage was turned onto a wall, and several onto the ceiling.”  
“And then-”  
“That’s when the incident began, I think.”  
“Not before?” asked Bullock.  
“No. It was at that point that all the alcohol at O’Malley’s pub was reversed gravity and started floating. That was the kid – the girl – and her powers going into overdrive.”  
“Why did that happen?”  
“Well, apparently the waters for the entire block were being laced with mutagenic chemicals that were giving a bunch of people abilities.”  
“Do you know where that came from?”  
“The proprietress had a rivalry with the nuns a few blocks down.”  
“Was it because she was a demon?”  
“She wasn’t a demon at first.”  
“She became one?”  
“Yes. You see, the nuns were mixing the mutagenic chemicals into the water-”  
“They were the ones lacing the waters? I thought you said it was another government.”  
“No, I said it was the nuns. You weren’t listening.”  
“You said it was another party.”  
“It was the nuns. You weren’t letting me get there. May I finish?”  
Gordon sighed. “Go on.”  
“Thanks. After the nuns mixed in the mutagenic chemicals, the proprietress ingested some of them and mutated into the weird bug form you caught on camera.”  
“We have evidence of it.”  
“Right. Well, to make a long story short, the nuns turned out to be aliens, and attacked. The proprietress was keeping them busy, so I worked on getting the kids out of there. There was a school bus nearby which I stole to get them moved quickly.”  
“You stole it?” Bullock asked with incredulity.  
“I was acting under duress, okay? I didn’t have time to ask permission.”  
“It’s forgivable,” said Gordon, raising a hand to stop Bullock from moving. “We have witnesses who saw you getting the kids out of there.”  
“Good. However, that girl’s powers started going into overdrive, curtesy of the mutagen. The alcohol in a nearby bar started floating and splattered the orphanage as we were leaving. One of the nuns could use fire, and a loose spark set the orphanage ablaze. The girl was freaked out, and sent the whole thing careening down the street, which is why you received reports of a burning orphanage falling into a church from the sky.”  
There were several moments of silence before Bullock crossed himself and left the room.  
“For what it’s worth,” said Gordon, “I believe you.”  
“You do? Can you let me go?”  
“‘Let you go’? Young man, you have just gotten involved in a fantastically complicated situation in which your only crime appeared to be getting involved. I am not ‘letting you go’.” Gordon stood up and unlocked Sean’s handcuffs. “I am making you leave and demand you never return. For all our sanities.”  
Sean rubbed his wrists. “You sure about that?”  
“Son, we have a masked man who dresses like a bat dealing with most of the criminals in Gotham. I don’t want any more weirdness than that.”  
Sean stood. “Well, thanks for your time and accommodations. Do you have any more of those donuts?”  
“Yeah, there should be some plain ones still in the box, assuming Bullock hasn’t got the rest.”  
“Oh, good. Again, I’m sorry about the church thing. I really didn’t mean to destroy it.”  
“It’s not your fault. Honestly, I think it was only a church by accident. It’s not like you went after it on purp…”  
Gordon was staring at something behind Sean. Sean turned around to see Michael waiting for him, his wings wrapped around his shoulders like a cloak, his horns extremely obvious in the mid-afternoon light. “Sean. Your work is done?”  
“Yep. All finished. Well, minus one thing.” Sean walked over to the front desk, hooked a donut, and walked back. “Okay,” he said around the donut in his mouth, “let’s go.”  
Gordon watched them leave with the tired expression of a man who’s seen this shit too many times before.  
***  
House stood at the edge of the doorway, staring out into the open air. It was a park in Oregon somewhere, in a large city she’d picked at random. Honestly, what even was a ‘Gresham’?  
“I’m not certain about this,” she said. “What if the duplicate fails?”  
“You’re connected to the duplicate via mind-link. If it fails, you’ll know.”  
“It’s not enough, master. I’ve got to make some adjustments, make sure everything is working perfectly.”  
Ah. So that’s how nervous she was. She never called me ‘master’, because the very idea of it disturbed me. I’d mentioned it before, and she backed down. “House, the deal we made was to show you the outside world. We have to start somewhere.”  
She stared at the park in front of her, and the only sounds were the wind blowing through the trees and the sound of a water fountain a dozen yards away. The sun was shining, birds were flying by, and occasionally a car passed us by. “I… I don’t…”  
“Do you want me to push you?”  
Her face scrunched up in determination. “No.” Then she stepped out.  
The room wobbled for a second, and then righted itself. I smiled and stepped out after her. The door shut behind us with a ‘thunk’. “Well, you’re outside. What do you think?”  
She stared around, her head turning every which way. I wonder what she was looking for. Maybe the trees? She could probably see the details of them, now. Maybe the birds, or those people with a dog. Was she looking for bugs?  
“It smells like wetness,” she said at last.  
“That’s one way to describe it.”  
“I have to say, for all the poetry I have read of nature, I would assume it was more beautiful than this. This is only-”  
I heard a dog bark. I turned and saw a black lab running towards me, his leash trailing the ground behind him. The man running behind the dog was out of breath and leaning on his knees to get his second wind.  
“Ah, who’s a good boy?” I said. The dog wagged its tail and rubbed against my legs. “Who’s a good boy? You are! Yes you are!” I stroke his ears and neck, and then scratched his back until he started thumping his foot.  
“Thanks,” said the owner. He was a middle-aged man, with short gray hair and a trimmed gray beard. “She likes running off like that. Too friendly for her own good.”  
“Oh, do you like people?” I said to the dog. “What’s her name?”  
“Ashlyn. She’s a good dog, she just likes people too much.” He laughed at his own joke. “Does your friend not like dogs?”  
I turned to find House cowering behind me. “Why is the canine not attacking you?” she asked. “Is it summoning the rest of the pack?”  
“House, it’s a dog.”  
“Practically a wolf.”  
“Dogs have long been domesticated by humans. They’re friendly. Try it. She likes being scratched behind the ears.”  
House reached out, her hand barely moving past me. Ashlyn sniffed House’s hand, and then licked it. She jerked it back like she’d caught fire. “You see? She wants to eat me!”  
“Dogs do that.” I let the dog lick my hand. “See? She’s friendly.”  
“Oh, yeah. Big friendly dummy.” Her owner laughed again and stooped down to pick up the leash. “We’ve gotta go. The wife’s expecting us.”  
“That was odd,” said House.  
“I know. Who names a dog ‘Ashlyn’?”  
“You are unconcerned by the fact that the owner has a pet wolf?”  
“It’s not a wolf. It’s a dog.”  
“What’s the difference?”  
“Several thousand years of domestication. It’s…” I stared at her. “Why do you care? You’re much much much stronger than a wolf, anyway.”  
“Wolves have rabies.”  
“Not all- Okay, what is this about?”  
“You told me there were gods among the superheroes. They could squash us at any moment.”  
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Okay… look. Those seven, they’re the pinnacle of what humanity can and should become. They don’t know you exist, most likely, and they wouldn’t just attack you if they did.”  
“How do you know that? You live with this danger all the time!”  
“Of course we do. We live with danger all the time. At a certain age, everyone knows we could just drop dead at any moment.”  
“Are you serious?” She stared at me like I was crazy which, going by the nightmares, is a fair possibility.  
“Dead serious,” I said, “and I don’t mean that as hyperbolic. We know life is fragile, easily lost. That’s why we treasure everything as best we can. You can’t truly live without taking a few risks.” I held out my hand. “The world is scary and weird and sometimes too chaotic to understand, but I promise to walk beside you through everything. I made a vow, House: I intend to fulfill it.”  
She stared at me for a while. “You think a speech will change my mind? That it would take me into this world of danger?”  
“I can force you into it, House, but I won’t. There’s so much you could experience here. Don’t you want to try?”  
“No. You live in a world of common horror.” She turned to a nearby door, which opened to reveal the library. “Why would I want that?” It shut with a slam, leaving me alone with my thoughts.  
***  
From within one of his safehouses, he waited.  
He’d been planning this for a while, now. The contract had been too good to pass up, even with the possibility of an unkillable target. It had taken some doing, sure, a spare suit and a level C bounty hunter, but he’d gotten the data he needed.  
The rifle he’d taken apart had just been oiled. With practiced motions, the soldier fitted it back together. He only had the one eye, now, but he didn’t need it to know he’d put the gun together perfectly when he heard the satisfying click of the safety turning off that he’d done it perfectly.  
He got his tools together, putting on the suit of his trade with practiced motions. He wasn’t as young as he used to be, but he was tough as iron and tougher. Perhaps this would be his end, but he thought it unlikely.  
After, he was Slade Wilson, Deathstroke the Terminator, Talia al Ghul’s backup plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Arthur Light was a bigger bad in the comics. I didn't want to write a comic about a rapist, so I axed him off in the fastest possible way.  
> And yes, Deathstroke is alive. He's not known as a hero killer for nothing.


	20. Trigger

I woke up from yet another nightmare. This time it was the night I killed Ra’s, except he just wouldn’t die and he was screaming and laughing the entire time, and that’s about when I woke up.  
I was in a cold sweat. I rubbed my eyes and got up. Probably should stop sleeping, at this point, if the nightmares just keep getting worse. If I ever face off against Doctor Destiny, it’s something I’m going to need.  
When I found the kitchen, I found House gleefully eating a sandwich. I didn’t know it was possible to eat a sandwich with as much malevolence as she was putting into it, but clearly my knowledge of the culinary arts is rusty.  
“Hi, House.” Were those pickles? God almighty, who eats with pickles in their sandwich? “What’s up?”  
“I just killed an angel.”  
“…fallen angel?”  
“Probably.”  
“What was his name?”  
“Neron.”  
“Oh, yes. Definitely.”  
An awkward pause ensued.  
“I’m hungry. I’m going to get something to eat.” I walked over to the fridge, and started pouring a bowl of cereal. “What’s the news for today?”  
“The Hun Chuis are merging back together into a single country. They’re going to be ‘Korea’ or something like that, based on their language and shared heritage.”  
“Okay.” Well, that’s cool. We just helped the reconciliation of some alternate-universe countries. “Anything else? Anything more suspicious?”  
“Just some notes. Some guy calling himself Odysseus is throwing his weight around.”  
“Hm… I think I know him. Charles Wilson, father of Deathstroke.”  
“Really?”  
“Yeah. He’s got a couple powers, too, which he can use with extreme lethality. What’s he up to?”  
“Rumors are he’s going to start a war in Bialya.”  
I frowned. What was he doing there? He didn’t have a lot of connections to Bialya. “That’s strange. Do you know where he’s at?”  
“I do. He’s not being very stealthy with his location.”  
“That’s odd. He’s CIA.”  
“It’s probably a trap.”  
“Most likely. We’ll just have to spring it and go from there.”  
“Do you want me to give you the address?”  
“Yeah, sure. I’ll scope it out, see what’s happening, and go from there. I mean, he can’t really hurt me, right?”  
“No, of course not. It’d be like hitting a block of concrete with a stick.”

I emerged from the door with a sudden gust of hot wind blowing in my face. Bialya is a hot country, I suppose, being in the middle east, but a warehouse wouldn’t be so cold. Or it shouldn’t, I guess. Life is unfair.  
I don’t know why Charles Wilson wanted this warehouse, of all places. He always had the nebulous, evil goals of most supervillains, combined with an abusive fatherhood of Slade Wilson, but a war seems… I dunno. I just don’t know why he’s here. I thought he was dead. Shows what I know.  
The warehouse was mostly empty, with a few crates full of weapons I wouldn’t know how to pronounce, let alone wield. And I do mean a few: there were, like, ten. The warehouse was the size of the one at the end of Raider of the Lost Ark. There could’ve been more in here. Maybe we’d caught Charles early?  
Glancing around outside revealed several security cameras in locations Sean told me to check. They were pointed away from the warehouse, scanning the area surrounding us for miles. Of course, it was barren desert on one side and slums on the other side.  
There wasn’t any office attached to the warehouse, nor was there a phone or anybody around who could tell me who this place belonged to. That meant interviews with the people outside. I grinned. I was going to be able to use House’s trick again.  
‘Hey, House?’  
‘What’s up?’  
‘I’m going to need to learn Arabic. Would you please stay in touch?’  
‘Sure thing.’  
I walked outside, and approached several of the people who were watching me. They were middle-brown, like me, but had darker features and rougher hair. About what you’d expect from this region. I walked up to them, and said “Do any of you speak English?”  
One of them started talking. I listened to him for a few minutes while House processed his words, and then I felt a slight rewiring in my brain that told me she was finished with her work.  
“…he’s not going to be happy,” the man finished.  
“You will just have to let me worry about that.” That was the part I hated about having a language downloaded into my head. I had to speak formally while learning it. Some folks were fine with it, others made fun of me, but for the most part I had French, German, Russian and Mandarin down pat. English and Spanish I already knew, and I guess I was about to learn Arabic. “What is the name of the owner of this storage facility?”  
“You speak Arabic?”  
“I do now. Who is the owner?”  
“A man in a mask. The mask is split down the middle into two colors.”  
Ah, like I’d thought. “Wilson?”  
“Yes, Wilson! American. A very dangerous American.”  
“I know him. Rest assured, I will not involve you or anyone here in this business. I’d avoid going anywhere nearby.”  
“Ha! Like you’d have to convince any of us twice!” The old man nodded to me, and started speaking to everyone else about what was going on. I turned back to the warehouse and walked back inside.  
It was just as dusty as I’d left it, although it seemed a bit draftier this time, too. Maybe I was just getting used to the heat of Bialya. Maybe I should figure out what the facts are before I start conjecturing. Well, the warehouse was empty, for now. We should get someone out here to watch it, maybe stake it out until Odysseus gets back. ‘House, open up. I’m coming back.’  
‘Still open.’  
‘Thanks.’ I stepped through the door into House’s library. “He’s not here right now, but if we set up someone to watch this place, we’ll be able to catch him in whatever he has planned. Then we-”  
Something hit me in the back of the head. A second later, I heard a gunshot go off, and House collapsed to the floor, holding her chest. I heard a click that sounded like a reload.  
I lashed out, grabbing at the nearest thing I could grab. It was someone’s leg, wearing a combat boot. I pushed against them until I heard something cracking and snapped the leg at the shin.  
Deathstroke dropped into my vision.  
I was stunned for a second, which was all it took for him to fire a shotgun into my face.  
I lay on the ground, too hurt to move. Slade Wilson snapped his leg back into place, and took to walking around House’s library, first shooting Sean with two bullets to the head, then impaling Cain on a wooden stake. As I forced myself to my feet, he tossed a grenade at Michael’s feet and used a flamethrower on Click.  
By the time I was ready to fight again, Star had a bullet in her shoulder and a gun pointed at her head. “Don’t move,” said Deathstroke, “or she dies.”  
I stopped moving. I wanted to kill him. Sean was dead. Cain wasn’t breathing anymore. Michael and Click were moving, but House looked in bad shape.  
“You tried to kill me,” said Deathstroke.  
“I thought I succeeded.”  
“You’re obviously unaware of how fast I heal.”  
“Obviously.” I spat out a chunk of shotgun pellet. “What now? We’re at an impasse.”  
“Maybe. But your friend on the ground there, she looks in bad shape. And I’m betting she controls this space. It’s taking all she can manage just to hold herself together, which means she can’t focus on me. And if this dimension collapses with you still inside, I’m betting that’s something you won’t come back from.”  
“If that door leads anywhere,” said House, coughing. She grinned through bloody teeth. “It doesn’t lead anywhere, now.”  
Slade glanced at her, and then at me. “You. Open the door.”  
I walked over to it, keeping an eye on Slade the entire time. When I turned my full attention to the door, I grasped the handle and yanked it open.  
On the other side was another me.  
It wasn’t like a mirror, where the reflection is a perfect reversal of everything being seen. It was a perfect image: I could read the words on my t-shirt just fine. It was weird to see my face in live-action when it wasn’t reversed, but more than that, I could see into the other room as well. My friends were also on that side, with another copy of Slade Wilson, Click and everyone else, exactly as I’d left them.  
“Trippy,” I said, before I realized I was in a very serious situation. I stared at other-me, who was staring back at me with the same reckless abandon with which I stared at him. It was like looking in a mirror that you FEEL in your bones is real.  
I reached out and touched other-me. He did the same. I tapped a rhythm on his forehead, and he did the same to me. On a whim, I turned sideways and scooted past him into the other room and found myself back in House’s Library.  
Everyone was staring at me.  
“The door leads back into here,” I said. “It doesn’t go anywhere.”  
“That was…” Click stared at me. “…really weird.”  
“In what way?”  
“You just went in and came back out in the same moment.”  
“Stop talking,” said Deathstroke.  
“Why? We’re stuck.”  
“For now. I doubt your butler will keep us all here until she dies, and this dimension collapses with her. It’s only a matter of waiting.”  
“Are you really going to keep a gun pointed at her head the entire time?”  
“Do you believe I can?”  
I did. “No.”  
“You’re lying.”  
“You’re right. How did you do that?”  
“Tells.” He didn’t elaborate.  
I focused on my friends, and took stock of who was al… I felt sick for a moment, but I pushed the feeling back. Two of my friends were dead. Cain had a stake through her chest and Sean had a bullet in his head. Michael was on his feet, but staggering, and Click looked the worse for wear but at least alive. Star had a bullet in her shoulder (expertly placed by a master assassin) and House was bleeding out from her chest. The last wouldn’t make it out alive. I had to figure out how to get myself and the other three who were still alive out of here.  
“So,” I said to Slade, “how are you still alive? Last time I checked, I’d crushed your ribcage.”  
“Decoy.”  
“That wasn’t you?”  
“No.”  
“Could’ve fooled me.”  
“You are very easy to fool.”  
I shrugged and leaned down next to House.  
“Don’t move.”  
“Oh, and what am I gonna do, huh? Get her to die faster?” I turned to House, lowering my voice as I spoke to her. “That’s about what I was thinking, actually.”  
“I beg your pardon, master, but that seems unwise.”  
“We have to be realistic. There’s a bullet in your chest and you’re liable to bleed out any second. I don’t want to lose you, but…” That dark feeling arose in my chest again. I pushed it back. “…you’re going to die.”  
She stared at me, her eyes expressionless in a face beading with sweat, her breathing shallow and loud. And then she laughed. “By the Presence, Lee, I’ve never met anyone like you.”  
“…what?”  
“Don’t act dumb. You see this world and all its imperfections, all the little evils that crawl about on its surface, and yet you talk of the beauty with every last breath. And then you do something like this, and I don’t wonder for the future, with you in control. I’m going to die…” She laughed again. “Of course I’m going to die! We all die! It’s just how many of the bastards we can take with us that defines what we are!”  
The ground shifted, pushing House to her feet at the same moment a spike jutted out of a wall and through Slade’s gun. A second later, the wall at Star’s back pushed her away into Michael’s waiting arms, and then the entire section of floor split in half, separating Deathstroke from my friends.  
“Deathstroke the Terminator!” roared House. “You sick son of a bitch! Come at me with everything you’ve got, you motherfucking piece of shit!” She spat out way too much blood and grinned at him with stained teeth. “I won’t even need to touch you to kick your ass!”  
She grabbed my shirt and dragged my face to hers. Her breath was hot and smelled like rusty iron. “Live,” she said to me. “You are the only master who has ever cared about me. You must live.” The room shifted again, and the door at the front was flung open, revealing a cityscape I didn’t recognize as the four of us were flung out into the open.  
I heard two shots.  
Star’s head exploded.  
House saluted me as another bullet pierced her chest and hit me directly in the eye.  
The door slammed shut, and there was silence.  
I stared at the door, a simple construction made of wood. “No,” I said. “No, no no no no no no no...” I walked over to the door and turned the handle. It was locked. “Please, no.” I pushed harder. Then I started hitting it. The sound of my fists hitting the door sounded in rhythm to the sound of me saying ‘no’. I don’t even know how long I was doing that: by the time Michael came over and put a hand on my shoulder, I’d smashed the door to pieces.  
“She’s gone…” I found myself saying. “They’re gone, they…” I stared at the broken wooden door. The wooden door. Wood. Something about-  
I turned around and walked over to Cain’s body. The wooden stake jutted out of her chest, partly rust-stained by her blood.  
“Slade knew,” I said. “Slade knew the ring’s weakness was to wood. There’s no way he could’ve known: that was one of the best-guarded secrets of the Justice Society. Someone had to tell him: someone who knows just as much about the ring’s properties as me.”  
Michael frowned. “Who would know? Who did you tell?”  
“Just her. I doubt she’d tell Zhanna or Click. There’s someone out there who knows magic backwards and forwards.” I grinned. “We’re going to kill them all.”  
“Lee,” said Michael.  
“Don’t chastise me. You’re angry too. You’ve gotta be.”  
“I…” His eyes flared with flames. “…I am. But we cannot let our anger control our actions. We must be calm about this.”  
“Oh, I’m calm. I’m completely calm. I’m going to murder all their faces, but I’m calm.”  
“He’s not calm,” said Click.  
“So I gathered,” Michael replied.  
“You two are just making snarky remarks while our friends are lying in the street!”  
“No, they’re not,” said Click. “Those are bodies. They once belonged to our friends, but our friends are gone, now. All that remains is lifeless meat.”  
“Dark,” I said. “Lifeless meat. That’s like saying they’re…” I shook my head. “Right. First things first. We have to take care of their bodies.” I leaned down and hoisted up Star, who was the lightest of the bunch. “We need to bury them.”  
“We can’t do that,” said Michael. “From what we learned from Neron, Sean was a god, or used to be one, and Star was made of imaginary material from House’s mind. We have to burn them.”  
“I can take care of that,” said Click. She was holding Cain’s body. “Let’s just get out of here. This street is too crowded.”  
***  
John Constantine was rudely awakened when someone impolitely knocked on his front door when he was trying to sleep.  
He sat up from bed. The entire left side of his head was one massive cowlick. If he’d been a little less hungover, he might’ve cared. The cigarette he’d left burning in the ash tray was still smoldering. If he just blew on it right, then maybe he could relight it.  
The knocking continued.  
“Oh, sod it,” he grumbled. He took out a light, relit the cigarette, and marched to the door with determined crotchety manners. He swung the door wide. “What the bloody hell do you want?” When the sun stopped hurting his eyes and he’d blinked away the tears, he was mildly surprised to see Zatanna Zatara standing in the doorway.  
“John. I need your help.”  
“Izzat right?” He scratched the rough stubble growing on his face. “What’d you bring me?”  
“John, it’s for a good cause.”  
“They all are, aren’t they? What did you bring me?”  
Zatanna sighed. “I knew I shouldn’t do this. You’re not going to help me.”  
“Then why’d you come at all?”  
“Because it’s serious. Someone is murdering demons.”  
“Bloody good time for them, then. Is Squire getting antsy about killing people again?”  
“Okay, John, let me say this again: someone is killing demons. And they’re not coming back.”  
John stopped smoking for a moment. “Okay… that’s weird. What do you mean, they’re not coming back?”  
“Any demon who was killed is refusing to be summoned again. Several of our magical allies have tried to summon them, only to get a message from the demons to say they’re not coming back. Some demons were sobbing when they said it. Others barely had enough cognizance to talk. Something is going after the supernatural world and tearing it apart, John, and whatever it is, it’s not good.”  
“I still don’t see how it’s our problem.”  
“John, it means that something is scarier than demons. If this had been one of the heroes, we’d have heard about it. If this had been you, you’d be bragging about it, or I’d hear stories about it. And I didn’t do it, because I don’t remember doing it.” She took a breath. “And they’ve mentioned a name. Lee.”  
“…I see where this is going. You think it’s that kid, the one who killed Joker.”  
“Amongst others.”  
“Small fry. I can’t even believe he and his companions would be much of a threat.”  
“He knows who Batman is. Presumably, he knows more than that. And you, of all people, know a little knowledge goes a long way.”  
John stood silently for a moment. This would be the time to start an inner monologue about the dangers he faced, and what he could do to stop them. Unfortunately, it was six in the bloody morning and he’d been binge-drinking the night before. Now was not the time to think: it was the time for caffeine.  
“Come in, if you like,” he said, opening the door the rest of the way. “I’m going to have a cup of black coffee.”  
“How black?”  
“Negative colors.”  
“Perfect.”

The coffeepot was bubble and just about ready, and John had managed to say nothing between the front door and then. It was irking Zatanna, and it was maybe just a little humorous to John.  
“John, do you have a plan?”  
Fourth time she’d said that. He was keeping track of the questions.  
“You have to talk at some point.”  
Sixth for that.  
“Your coffee’s done. Aren’t you going to drink it?”  
Ah, that was a first. And it raised a good point. John pulled two mugs out of the sink and poured two cups of coffee. He set one before Zatanna and started sipping the other. “I am going to do something, love.”  
“And that is?”  
“I’m going to drink my coffee, and then I’ll figure this out.” He took another sip, and tracked the veins popping on Zatanna’s forehead. “It’s important to realize, though, that if we are dealing with the same bloke, he’s got the House of Horrors at his command. That’s likely to be a benefit. We have to factor in, though, that he had the House for a while, and he’s only just now started to do this.”  
“So, something’s changed.”  
“Right. We know he has friends, now, and a few accounts say he’s from an alternate dimension.”  
“Parallel universe.”  
“One of the two. In either case, he has few friends. If something’s happened to them, that could induce the change we’re seeing here. Lashing out blindly at the magical world, though… I’d wager it’s not just any of them. I think it’d be the House.”  
“The House?”  
“She was the first meaningful connection he’d made in this realm, essentially his oldest friend. Something happens to her, he goes ballistic.”  
“That’s an awfully big leap to make.”  
“Consider this: he’s lashing out at dozens of demons, correct?”  
“The number is approaching a hundred.”  
“Good god. If he’s lashing out at the supernatural, it stands to reason that he’s searching for a magical cause. Of his known associates, we have a Green Lantern Expy and her split personality, two demons, two half-aliens and the House of Horrors. Of these, it seems the one most likely to compel Lee to action would be the House, since it’s beyond him. If the demons were in trouble or hurt, the House could deal with it. She’s an expert on magical fixes. We know standard injuries wouldn’t make him this furious, either, what with the Lock-Up incident. Therefore, his friends being injured also wouldn’t cause this. At the very least, the House is out of the picture.”  
“That’s… that’s fairly impressive, John.”  
He grinned. “It’s what I do.” He frowned again. “That still doesn’t leave us with a lot of leads. We know Lee’s going to attack demons, we know he’ll do something horrible to them, and we know the demons would rather stay in literal hell than come back here. Which means…” John Constantine cracked his knuckles. “…we have a bargaining chip.”  
“John you’re not going to bargain with demons, are you?”  
“I’m definitely going to bargain with demons. However, I wouldn’t think they’d be unwilling to give me what I want. In fact, I think I know a guy.” John stood. “You stay here. I’m going to get my coat.”  
“Always with that coat.”  
“’Course it is. It’s a bloody great coat.”

“Zhardon, you con man! Get out here!”  
Silence came from within the pawn shop. Constantine frowned. “That’s weird. I thought he’d be out here by now.”  
“He stopped running that Gotham misdirection scam shortly after his encounter with Lee, and when we’ve checked up on him, he wasn’t selling any magical items.”  
“Not like there’s a lot to go around,” muttered John. “What with Mordru’s death, magic hasn’t exactly been as freely available.”  
Zatanna frowned but said nothing. Likely she agreed with John, and just didn’t want to show it.  
“Hey, Zhardon! Where are you?”  
The continued silence told them nothing.  
“John, I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”  
“Me, too.” John recited a spell, and held a ball of light in his hand. “Stay behind me. I’m going in.”  
John walked around the edge of the counter and into the backroom. He heard scuffling noises, and kicked open the door to the back.  
The room was full of brown plaster and water stains, with two filing cabinets against one wall and a single bare bulb hanging from a cord from the ceiling. In the middle of the room, Zhardon was tied to a chair with a piece of paper with a Japanese character taped to his forehead, and a bag of water that dripped continuously on his forehead.  
“Zatanna, do you know what these are?” asked John.  
“I do,” she replied. “The paper is an omamori. Let me see… ‘Etalsnart nettirw egaugnal’… it’s for purging evil and unholy entities from a given location.”  
“And unless I miss my guess, that’s holy water,” said John, pointing at the dripping bag.  
“It is,” said Zhardon. He lifted his head. His eyes were dark, with rings running around them. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a while. “Those… bastards hooked me up… made me choose between this and-” A drop from the bag landed on his face. He screamed in agony. “Please! Get me outta here! I’ll do whatever you want!”  
“Then answer some questions,” said John.  
“Shouldn’t we let him out?”  
“The order wasn’t a given, Zatanna.” John focused on the demon. “Who did this to you?”  
“The same one… who beat us… so many months ago.”  
“It is him. Dammit. What do he want?”  
“Friends have died… looking for killer… I didn’t know anything. I tried to tell him. He… he made us choose between… between the heart of the star… and this.”  
“What is the heart of the star?”  
“It hurts! It-” He cut off again for a moment as another drop of water fell on him, and he screamed again. “-please let me go! It hurts!”  
“What is the heart of the star?”  
“The Starheart! That which burns evil! He made me choose between being killed by that and being tortured for three days like this when I told him I didn’t know anything. Please! Let me go or kill me!”  
“I can’t kill you,” said John, “but a quick exorcism should do the trick.” He held out his hand, and began to chant in Latin. It was a rare spell that was quick and painful to the demon, which is what he preferred. A blue fire encompassed Zhardon for a moment, and then he collapsed as black smoke billowed from his mouth to vanish near the floor. A second later, the human host woke up.  
“Where… where am I?”  
“You’re in a shop you now own. It sells magic shit. You were possessed by a demon and now you’re free. Do whatever you like with your time, now. We’re off. Bye.” John turned and stalked from the room.  
“Oh, for the love of…” Zatanna sighed, and turned to the stranger. “Rebmemer woh ot nur siht erots.” A glow of gold light, and then the man’s confusion gave way to clarity. “You should be able to run your shop, now. Please don’t get involved with anything extremely evil.” With that, she turned and followed after John.  
“What now?” she asked. “We don’t know what they’re looking for. We only know Lee is desperate to get it.”  
“We know a few things,” said John, “and now we know they’re scared of something he has. The ‘Starheart’. I’ve heard stories about it, but I thought Alan Scott had the Starheart.”  
“Maybe it’s from a parallel universe.”  
“That would be all the luck. Can you imagine yet another bloke with a Lantern’s power running around?”  
“We could always use another hero.”  
“Not another Sinestro, though. Or another Red Lantern. Or Larfleeze. Or-”  
“Point made, John.”  
“No, it isn’t. The point of that was to show there are seven or eight different corps, all of which use different kinds of light and emotion to power their rings. All we know is this other Starheart may or may not exist. It may not even use the green light of will.”  
“Again, we don’t know what we’re dealing with?”  
“No, we don’t. Which means-”  
“Demonic negotiations?”  
“Demonic negotiations!”

“What the hell kind of demon refuses a soul?!” demanded John, throwing his bowl of incense against the wall.  
“Maybe he knew you were lying,” said Zatanna. “Nruter lwob.”  
“The other stuff wasn’t lying, though. I mean, tears of the innocent? I got a demon to give up a whole operation for that, once. And what demon in their right mind doesn’t want the bone of a saint?”  
“Many, many demons. Are you sure you’re using the right bargaining chips?”  
“’Course I am. I know how demons think. Whatever Lee is doing, it’s enough to scare ‘em silent.”  
“What is he doing?”  
“I don’t know! No demons are willing to talk to me!” John sighed, and rubbed his eyes. “I think we’re going to have to put in a call to one of the rulers.”  
“That’s a dangerous game, John.”  
“Are you telling me not to?”  
“I’m asking if you’re prepared for the consequences. Last time you dealt with an upper-level demon, he…”  
“…damned a little girl to hell. I remember.” John frowned, absently popping his knuckles in thought. “…but we’ve got nothing else to go on. Let’s see what Blaze has to say.”  
Zatanna nodded. “I’ll do a stronger one, this time. Nommus eht drol fo lleh nwonk sa ezalb dna ekam reh elbanu ot truh su.” She glowed with golden light, and the brazier before her, filled with incense and offerings, glowed with a dark red light. Smoke billowed up, filling the motel room until John couldn’t see the trashy wallpaper on the other side of the room.  
Then the smoke slammed together like watching a bomb in reverse, and a figure stood in the room. She had skin as red as fresh blood, long curved horns sprouting from her head, and a dress with a long slit down the middle to reveal ample cleavage. She was beautiful, John could admit to himself, but the smell of brimstone and the wolfish smile she had kept him on guard. For she was Blaze, sister to the king of hell, and fiendishly evil on her own, regardless.  
“Hello, John,” she said, practically purring, “to what do I owe this pleasure?”  
“Simple. I’m here for information.”  
“So forward. And yet, you have nothing to offer.” She grinned. “What can I do for you, little mortal?” She reached forward and stroked a finger along John’s chin.  
“I need to know about Lee.”  
Her hand spasmed, and her smile grew strained for a moment. If John hadn’t been looking for it, he wouldn’t have seen it. She relaxed again, but by the tense way she held her arms at her sides, she was trying to act natural and was, in actuality, not relaxed.  
“Why do you want to talk about him? I’d much rather talk about you.”  
“Sure you would. And your demons will keep dying.”  
“None have died yet.”  
“So you DO know about them.” John smirked. “Tell me, what brought a little demon threatening to your attention?”  
“That is not what I’m here to discuss.”  
“But since you’re here already, let’s discuss it.”  
“Little man, I am not to be toyed with.”  
“Which is why it’s so fun. Again, who’s trying to kill your minions?”  
“Enough, mortal!” she yelled. She reached forward in a way that suggested she was about to strangle John (he knew the posture from experience) but stopped three inches short of his neck. “What is this?”  
“Counter-spell,” said John. “You must really be off your game if you didn’t notice it. Zatanna’s currently maintaining it, from behind your back. Literally, in this case.”  
“You… insignificant little…”  
“Yes, yes, I’m a terrible mortal. Now, tell me about Lee.” John sat on the bed and cracked open a beer with a spell. A waste, in most cases, but he needed to show he was as relaxed as could be. “What’s got you in such a tizzy that you couldn’t see a trick like this?”  
Her hands were curved like claws, so tense you could hear the joints popping. John cast a glance at Zatanna while Blaze was looking away. She was sweating profusely, and the golden light was dimming, just a hair. She wouldn’t last much longer under these conditions.  
“…they killed Satanus.”  
Forget Zatanna, this was more important. “Beg pardon?”  
“You heard me. My brother is dead. They killed him.” She sat on the bed, and folded her arms. “They’re using a Starheart. It’s been modified, somehow, to be able to hurt demons on the spiritual level.” She shivered. A demon, shivering? Not something you see every day. “Do you know what happens to a demon when it dies? It goes into the reincarnation cycle. Every evil deed you committed while you were a demon is judged against you. You’d be lucky to be born as a rat in a barn full of cats.”  
“Oh, that’s just terrible.”  
She glared at him. She waved a hand in front of her face, revealing that her right eye was nothing but a mass of scar tissue, and dark, scarred lines ran across her face, remnants of a claw or a dull knife. The base of one of her horns was chipped, as well, and scabbing surrounded where another one had been yanked back and forth. “Do you think I was hesitant merely because my brother was dead? I was scarred too. I’ve been tortured by this… Lee as much as any other.” She said it almost like a swear word. And coming from a demon, someone used to swearing false oaths? Impressive. “Do you know what it’s like, little mortal, not answering calls? There have been no new souls in Hell for the past two weeks.”  
“How awful.”  
“You understand nothing! Do you know what will happen if evil souls cannot pass on to Hell? They will be trapped in the mortal plane until there is no more room, and then the dead will walk. You need the demons to take away evil souls, John Constantine. If this rampage continues, Lee will doom your entire world.”  
“…okay, then,” said John. “Let’s say I believe you. What is he looking for?”  
“Who says he’s looking for anything?”  
“Don’t lie to me, it’s unflattering.”  
She sighed. “Leave a girl some secrets, huh? He’s looking for whoever hired Deathstroke to kill his friends, and who would have the necessary information to kill a prison demon.”  
“Prison demon, huh?” John had no idea what a prison demon was, but a spark of recognition in Zatanna’s eye told him he could get it from somewhere else. “Alright. Who knows?”  
“I don’t know.”  
“What did I say about lying?”  
“I don’t know! I wouldn’t lie about that!” She sighed. “But I can tell you someone who is connected. Someone who’s been arranging meetings with our informant. Teth-Adam.”  
“What?!” said Zatanna. Her voice broke the spell she was holding.  
“Finally!” shouted Blaze. She swung her left hand back, and an arc of flame jutted out towards Zatanna. She reached out with her right hand and grabbed John by the neck, hoisting him up until his feet were completely off the ground. “You insolent pest! How dare you make me subservient to you!” As she squeezed John’s neck, a chunk of liquid metal coated her head until it made a helmet, with three points pointing towards her nose. It also cast a shadow over her face, leaving it only a black void with two glowing red points for eyes and a leering grin for a mouth. “Have you anything to say for yourself, WORM?”  
John coughed. “Yeah,” he said, his voice croaking, “have a bone.” And he held the bone of a saint against her good eye.  
The sizzling sound of flesh followed a moment later, and Blaze dropped John to hold her eye, screeching in pain.  
“Bone of a saint,” said John. “Improperly corrupted, it’s a potent weapon against demons.” He crushed it, and started chanting. The bone fragments hovered above his palm for a moment, and then lashed out, hundreds of dust particles covering Blaze’s entire body. She screamed louder, but John wasn’t listening at this point. He walked over to the bowl of incense, spoke a few words over it, and then put out the flame. The screaming stopped. The sizzling ended. And the room was once more a motel room in a filthy motel in the middle of nowhere.  
“That,” said Zatanna, “was awful.” Her clothes were burnt a little, but she was otherwise alright. A magic spell on her part fixed her costume back to its prime. “I’m sorry I dropped the spell, but we got what we needed.”  
“Teth-Adam. A name.”  
“More than a name. A supervillain. That’s Black Adam, and he rules Kahndaq.”  
“Oh. Yes, I’d say that was more than a name.” Constantine frowned. “This means we’re going to have to talk to the kid.”  
“We have to. He’s fought with Black Adam before. He’d know how he thinks.”  
“I fully realize that. I just…”  
“You don’t want to put children in danger?”  
“No, I don’t like the little shit. I mean, someone with Shazam’s power, acting like a little kid?”  
“He is-! You know what, John, I’m tired of the baiting, okay? Let’s just go talk to Shazam and get on with this.”  
“Fine by me.”  
***  
“Understood.” Batman closed the communication screen and sat back in the control seat. He’d taken over communiques ever since Martian Manhunter had left, and while he wasn’t normally sociable, he could stand it long enough to give order and plan logistics. Planning for this, though…  
Batman tended to avoid international incidents, unless they directly involved a case of his. This usually meant the Joker or, more likely, Ra’s al Ghul, but with both being dead he’d been able to consolidate his power base to improve Gotham. Going up against Black Adam was likely to backfire, and so was trying to protect him. There was little choice, though.  
“Computer. Contact Teth-Adam.”  
The electrical voice hummed and responded. “Acknowledged. Contacting now.”  
Batman leaned back and waited. The control panel for the Watchtower was laid out on the observation deck, allowing him a view of the Earth below. The Watchtower was currently hovering over Kahndaq, making the connection easier and stronger. Inside, it was completely polished chrome and blinking lights that all meant something important. Batman kept a list of what each of the lights meant in his head, and he could rattle them off for a half hour without repeating or missing anything. He wanted to make sure, should anything happen to his teammates, he could run the Watchtower all by-  
“Dark knight. What a pleasant surprise.”  
Batman jerked his attention back to the blue-tinted holographic screen. “Black Adam.”  
“ ‘Your majesty’ would be preferable.” The man onscreen had a black hair in a widow’s peak. His eyes were dark and cold, his uniform a black void with a glowing golden lightning bolt on his chest. He had his arms crossed, the gold wrist gauntlets clinking as he shifted. His black cap fluttered behind him, with the same gold trims as his uniform. It was a display, a way of showing how superior her was to those he spoke. And yet, Batman could see the telltale twitching of his eyelids, the shallow breathing that said he was nervous.  
“Your majesty, your life is in danger.”  
“Are you threatening me?”  
“Don’t get ahead of yourself. The League isn’t planning anything in Kahndaq. We’re warning you of an incoming threat. Are you aware of the incidents involving demons over the past few weeks?”  
“I am.”  
“The incidents have been perpetrated by a known criminal named Lee, last name unlisted. He’s gained infamy for killing Ra’s al Ghul and his daughter, Talia.” An uncomfortable lump formed in Bruce’s throat, but he pushed it down. “We believe he’s searching for whoever’s responsible for the death of his companions, and our preliminary searches indicates you.”  
“Are you accusing me of a crime?”  
“I’m merely stating the facts as we know them. We believe your life may be in danger, and we wanted to offer protection.”  
“Protection?” Black Adam scoffed. “Kahndaq has had enough of outsiders’ ‘protection’. We don’t need you or any of the League within our borders. And if any more of your probes or your heroes cross the border, they will be declared enemies of the state, and they will follow this probe here.” He uncrossed his hands and smashed the probe with one strike. At least, that’s what Batman assumed. The image cut off to reveal only static, which was a good indicator the probe was no longer sending a signal.  
Batman leaned back in his seat, and steepled his fingers. This might be difficult. Black Adam could be antagonistic at the best of times, but right now he was hostile and unlikely to accept help, which he would desperately need. Lee was not to be underestimated, but resources were stretched thin. It’s not like you can just send Superman to deal with this; there’d be a riot if the Man of Steel invaded a sovereign nation. You have to work smaller.  
“Computer, contact Zatanna.”  
“Acknowledged. Contacting now.”  
The computer hummed quietly while the connection was made. The screen was blank, except for the loading icon that Clark insisted be in there. It shifted between the seven symbols representing the founders of the League. Batman thought it was cheesy, but even he could admit it fit the theme of the Watchtower.  
“Zatanna here.” She was standing on a rooftop of an apartment building. John Constantine was behind her, his coat wrapped around him. He was swearing about the wind chill.  
“Batman. Black Adam refused assistance.”  
“I thought as much. He’s never been on the best terms with us.”  
“He’s grown hostile. He’s threatened to attack any outsiders who enter his borders.”  
“That’s not terribly good.”  
“Worse than that. It means he’s expecting us.”  
“Oh, and you’ve never dealt with that before, have you?”  
Bruce smiled. “I have some ways of getting around that. You’re going to need to get in touch with Batson.”  
“Dammit,” said Constantine in the back.  
“John’s not happy about that,” said Zatanna with a smirk.  
“I see that. Get in touch with Batson; I’ll get you tickets and passports to Egypt on the Sinai Peninsula. It’ll be close, but you’ll have to find your own way in from there.”  
“Thanks, Bruce. Over and out.”  
***  
Billy Batson, the world’s Mightiest Mortal, able to tango with Superman and the Justice League, flyer at supersonic speeds and able to lift tons of concrete, was in serious danger.  
His grades were slipping (the horror!).  
Ordinarily, he wouldn’t be worried about something like that. Mr. and Mrs. Vasquez, his adopted parents, knew he had trouble in school, and Freddy, his adopted brother, was more than willing to help him get out of schoolwork. Even then, should he ACTUALLY need to study, Eugene, his other adopted brother, was a smart egg and could help him out.  
The problems started arising when Billy ALSO had to deal with giant robots, and he still didn’t get to tell his adoptive parents about it.  
Billy swerved out of the way of the giant robot tendril, wrenching out of the body as he did. It wasn’t very powerful, and the cybernetics weren’t that advanced, according to the wisdom of Solomon. That was always useful, one of the six powers from gods long gone, that spelled out the name of this power and his superhero alter-ego, SHAZAM. Who wore a red leotard with a lightning bolt on it, and the only reason he wasn’t mistaken for the Flash more often was because of the white cape, lack of hood and the shiny gold boots. Black Adam had a better costume, and his was just black where Billy’s was red.  
Freddy’d always said it was dumb. The name, not the costume. The costume was rad. If you were limited to having six gods based on the letters in your name, why not call yourself Wonderfully Amazing Stupendous Man? Then Eugene would argue that it all had to be one word, and Freddy would suggest a long word, and Mary would mention Antidisestablishmentarianism, and Pedro would mention that his uncle knew some magic and each letter would make the spell infinitely more difficult, and Darla would ask where his uncle learned magic and if she could learn some. He had a lot of siblings.  
Billy had a lot of siblings, he thought with a smile. As he ripped off another tendril, the gray paneling on the main body of the robot ripped off, revealing green circuitry and an observation window underneath. That was probably the location of the driver inside. Billy flew using the power of Mercury and hovered next to the panel, using the strength of Hercules to rip the paneling apart to get inside.  
There was a mousy-looking man inside, with glasses and a shaved face and screaming about how they’ll all pay. Billy had heard it before. Just smash the bot, grab a long piece of metal, wrap it around the bad guy and wait for the cops to arrive to sort everything out. He knew this shtick. The robot collapses, the cops come, STAR labs takes all the tech away, and life is golden.  
“At ease, everyone!” said Billy. There were a few passers-by, but most of them hadn’t bothered to watch the fight. Robot battles were pretty common, now, and even Billy and his friends were getting tired of seeing new giant robots every day. Well, almost tired. Red Tornado was pretty cool.  
Billy zoomed away using the speed of Mercury until he found himself in an alleyway that he and the other kids knew about, as their secret meeting place. It was right nearby Victor’s and Rosa’s house, and was far enough away to be misleading, but close enough so that, if thunder happened to strike, you could come running. And it was about to.  
“Shazam!”  
Lightning flashed from the clear sky, for a moment washing out the sun, and a split second later the boom of thunder fallowed. It struck Billy’s position, turning his large, muscular body in red to Billy’s smaller form, coincidentally also in red. But where Shazam was tall, muscular and honestly good-looking, Billy Batson was short for his age of fifteen, and his face was constantly contorting into a frown he didn’t feel most of the time. Of all the things he envied of his Shazam form, the fact the big guy naturally smiled was the biggest thing he missed.  
Of course, the sound of footsteps and crutches scraping the ground brought a smile to Billy’s face anyway.  
Freddy Freeman rounded the corner. It was the middle of September, so it wasn’t quite cold enough to wear his trademark stocking cap, but he was wearing that tan jacket he was fond of. The blond curls from his head cascaded down in an unruly ruffle, and the crutches he leaned on with measured familiarity were worn but functional still. His gimp left leg was still so, and despite the world of marvels they lived in, Freddy was still forced to walk around like Crutchie from Newsies.  
“Dammit,” said Billy.  
“You thinking about that play again?”  
“I can’t get those songs outta my head! I swear, ‘King of New York’ was just on repeat the entire time I was fighting that robot!”  
“Well, you know Mary,” said Freddy. The two of them started walking back to the house. “Always the nerd about everything.”  
“Half of everything. Eugene has the other half. And just because I don’t know what an Energy Sword is, we have to suffer.”  
“Yes,” said Freddy, glancing meaningfully at his leg, “we all suffer.”  
“Yeah, you’ve got it easy. No one would ever hit a cripple.”  
“You wound me, sir! Me, a poor, defenseless lad with a lame leg!”  
“Gosh, never heard THAT one before.”  
“Now you’re just being insulting. Are you saying I need new material?”  
“If that’s your good material, then very much so, yes.”  
Freddy grinned. “Curses. I’ve been bamboozled. You win this round, Batson.”  
“Why, thank you, Freeman.” Billy grinned back. “More to the point, do you know what’s for dinner? I’ve been out and about.”  
“Dinner is mashed potatoes and roast chicken.”  
“What’s the occasion? Rosa hates making roasts.”  
“Someone gave them a leftover roast.”  
“Wait, who? Are we having people over for dinner?”  
“Yeah. Some people from the scholarship committee.”  
“Oh, for Eugene?”  
“No.”  
“Mary?”  
“Nuh-uh.”  
“Pedro? You?”  
“Nope and no.”  
“Well, it’s a bit early for Darla but-”  
“Dude, drop the act. They’re here for you.”  
“Impossible. I didn’t sign up for any scholarship.”  
“Then… what are they doing?”  
Freddy and Billy stopped right at the edge of the white picket fence. The tan-colored house sat innocently enough, but it somehow looked a lot more sinister.  
“What did they look like?” Billy asked.  
“Some goth chick in black and a guy in a trench coat.”  
“Hm… not good. Can you go in front, distract them while I go from behind?”  
“Distract someone? Me?”  
“Don’t claim you’re not good at it,” replied Billy, grinning. He ran to the fence and leaped up, grabbing the top to hoist himself over. Mary’d taught him the mechanics of it, and training from sneaking in now and again had helped him master it. He snuck around the back and waited by the sliding door, listening to the murmuring voices within. He could hear Victor telling a joke, and Rosa’s life, and two other laughs he didn’t recognize. That meant his siblings were in their rooms while they waited for him to come to dinner.  
The thought of that warmed him, despite the chill.  
Focus. They were talking, which meant his parents didn’t know what was going on. That meant whoever those two in there were, they at least wanted to keep this on the down-low. But if they knew enough of where he lived, then why were they leaving his family alone?  
“Wait, goth chick? Guy with a trench coat?” Billy smacked himself in the forehead. “I’m an idiot.” He walked through the sliding glass door, just in time to hear John Constantine telling a crude joke. It was shocking to hear, but even more socking to hear Rosa laughing uproariously. She never let herself laugh at crude jokes. It was unfair. Billy should be able to tell those jokes, right?  
He walked in. “Hey Victor, hey Rosa,” he said. He was careful to enunciate so that Freddy from the front door could hear him. “What’s up?”  
To her credit, Rosa looked chagrined. Victor wasn’t, and waved Billy in. “Hey, son. Why didn’t you applied for a scholarship?”  
Looking at Victor and Rosa was like looking at opposites. Victor was tall, thin, and had glasses. Rosa was short, chubby and had perfect vision. Victor’s hair was a mess except for his meticulously trimmed goatee, and Rosa’s hair was perfectly styled, and she had no facial hair that Billy was aware of. And, as suspected, John Constantine and Zatanna Zatara sat on the guest couch with snacks on smaller plates.  
“That’s right,” said Rosa, brushing a stray lock of hair back. “You should’ve told us. We would’ve helped.”  
“There’s not a lot you could have done,” Billy replied. “It was basically random.”  
“Your son did everything right, Mrs. Vasquez,” said Zatanna. John was eating cookies. Billy didn’t know there were any cookies left. “It was a randomized selection, which means William has won an all-expenses paid field trip to Egypt. We know it’s sudden, but rest assured, we’ve gone through all the proper channels for this.”  
“That’s great!” Said Rosa. “We’ve been worried about this sort of thing with Billy.”  
“Not that he isn’t doing well,” added Victor.  
“He’s lying,” said Billy. “My grades suck.”  
“Billy!” said Rosa.  
“It’s true. No use denying it.”  
Freddy walked in, then. “Oh, I see you guys started without me. No need to wait up, I’m used to being left behind.”  
“Freddy,” admonished Victor.  
“I’m just pulling your leg. I’m okay.”  
“If you don’t mind,” said John, “we’d like a word alone with Billy.”  
“Oh… okay, then,” said Rosa. She stood, followed by Victor. “John, Clara, if you two need anything, don’t be scared to ask. Dinner should be on soon.” She kissed Billy on the forehead (right in front of two superheroes!) and left the room. Victor gave him a pat on the shoulder, and then walked out after.  
“You too, Freddy,” said John.  
“No, he’s cool,” said Billy. “He knows I’m Shazam. All the kids do.”  
“At school?”  
“No, are you insane? Just here. Just my family.”  
“What, you’re Shazam?” said Freddy. “Wow, what a surprise. And I thought I got powers just because I’m special.”  
“Sounds like quite an adventure,” said John. “Anyway, we need to go to Kahndaq.”  
“Kahndaq?” asked Billy. He frowned. “Why? Is this about Black Adam?”  
“In… a way.”  
“We have to protect him,” said Zatanna.  
“Well,” said Freddy, “that’s a load of horseshit.”  
“Oi, watch it,” John sniped back. “I’m the only one allowed to swear in this fucking house.”  
“John, there are children present!”  
“They already know all the words. I’m not doing any harm.”  
“You’re not supposed to swear around children!”  
“Do you know the c-word?” asked Freddy.  
“Yeah, it’s-”  
“REGARDLESS,” said Zatanna, “Billy, Black Adam is in trouble. Do you remember Lee?”  
“Be specific.”  
“The guy that killed the Joker.”  
“Oh, that guy. Yeah, I was at his trial.”  
“He’s at it again. He’s going after Black Adam.”  
“So?” asked Freddy.  
“We can’t let that happen,” said Zatanna.  
“Really? He did try to kill me and my siblings. Not something easily forgiven.” He said it offhandedly, but the burning fury in his eyes told a different story.  
“We have to,” said Billy.  
“Are you serious?”  
“Of course I’m serious. I…” Billy stood, walking to the edge of the room and staring at the walls. “We have to. If we let them die, we put a value on a life.” He sighed. “I don’t like him, either, but if I can save him, maybe… maybe he can be redeemed. He used to be good, Freddy. I have to believe there’s a part of him that still can be.” He turned around. “When do we leave?”  
Zatanna nodded. “As soon as we can. We’ll leave a spell on your parents to keep them calm, and we’ve already gone through your teachers to make sure your absence won’t be remarkable.”  
“Thanks.” Billy paused. “By the way, before we get going, I have something to ask: what’s going on with magic?”  
“You’ve noticed, then?” asked John.  
Zatanna smiled. “That was another of Lee’s actions, which we learned of from Doctor Fate. He killed Mordru, one of the Lords of Chaos. Magic, since then, has become more… orderly. Llaberif.” She held her hand aloft, a sphere of flame hovering in her hands. “There’s more order to magic, now. Spells have to be more precise, magical creatures are limited to three powers, and gods are… well, we’re not sure, at the moment. It’s a wide-reaching affect, and we’re still cataloguing the changes.”  
“Has something happened to the wizard’s power?” asked John.  
Billy shook his head. “I’m still plenty strong. I’ve got the powers of Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles and Mercury, and they haven’t changed. It’s just… I don’t know. There’s this other feeling, like if I said something else something would happen. It’s probably nothing, but it’s… like a mental itch.”  
“Is magic really different, though?” asked Freddy. “I haven’t noticed anything.”  
“Well, you wouldn’t,” said John. “Magic’s always been on the downlow. There’ve been a few changes that you might notice; Gotham’s much easier to navigate, now. There was a demon who was confusing people by creating special distortions. Doctor Fate’s tower is visible to normal folks until he figures out a spell to counteract it. But yeah, not a lot has changed, ‘cept it’s easier to defeat demons now.”  
“’Cause they only have three powers?”  
“Yep.”  
“That’s all I wanted to know,” said Billy. “I’ve got a bag packed upstairs. I’ll join you guys outside in a few minutes.”  
“Make your goodbyes quick,” said John. “The spell will take ahold in ten minutes.” He and Zatanna stood up from their seats and walked outside.  
Billy turned to Freddy. “Look, man, before we go… I have to do something.” He placed his hand on Freddy’s shoulder.  
Freddy grinned. “Dude, I’m not gay.”  
“Just… shut up, okay? I’m trying to concentrate.” A zap of electricity leaped from Billy onto Freddy, making the blonde boy jump. “There. It’s done.”  
“Dude, what did you do?”  
“It’s a transfer, kinda. If I die, the powers of Shazam pass to you. Say the word, and you’ll become Shazam.”  
“Kinda morbid, isn’t it?”  
“I… I don’t know what’s going to happen, Freddy. It’s something I’ve been thinking about, while I’ve been Shazam.” Billy sat on the couch and clasped his hands. “There’s been a lot of changes happening, recently. I mean, did anyone really think the Joker would finally die? And the Arkham break-in, and everything else… I don’t know what’s going to happen. But if I die, there needs to be a Shazam to carry on the fight.”  
Freddy said nothing while Billy stood.  
“You can share the power, if you like, or you can use it to make yourself stronger. I’m…” Billy shook his head and walked up the stairs.  
“Why did you have a bag packed?”  
Billy stopped. He couldn’t make eye-contact. “I always had one in every foster home. If it didn’t work out, I’d have an easy out. But with everything that’s happened here… I didn’t really remember to unpack.”  
He walked away. It was easier than seeing what Freddy looked like.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy frick this chapter was longer than I wanted.  
> I had to make this a two-parter because the darned thing did not want to end.  
> I realize I've made a mistake by setting this story in the New 52/Rebirth timeline, as research has become difficult. Suffice to say, I'm kinda just making up most of it as I go along. So, Billy Batson's origins are based on his New 52 story, with elements being drawn from his New Earth counterpart and from Thunderworld. I wish Shazam had his own ongoing series, but, alas, I don't run the comic world, and things like Luke Cage and All-Star Batman get cancelled. Bleh.


	21. Thunderstruck

The plane touched down in Egypt south of Kahndaq at around noon, or three in the morning from the perspective of Billy’s internal clock. The blazing sun from the noontime heat hit him the face in an instant, the sands surrounding the international airport rippling in a mirage. He slipped on his sunglasses and followed the terminal down from the plane and into the airport, where the air conditioning was pulling double-duty to make sure everything remained cold. Billy thought that specifically because John said so.  
After that, they met with a man wearing a skull mask and a voice distorter. He claimed to work for Batman, and after a couple of loaded questions from Zatanna, they agreed to follow him to his truck. It was loaded with items banned in Kahndaq, like foreign beers and music, as well as an assortment of technology from other countries.  
It was hot all the way over. The skull-mask man couldn’t risk them being discovered because he was trying to keep things cold, so it was up to Zatanna and John to use low-power spells all the way over. It amounted to essentially a tiny breeze blowing in Billy’s face, which mean that, by the time he made it to Kahndaq, he was drenched in sweat and had to change socks. John was the worst off; he was complaining that it was too bloody hot to wear his coat.  
“…and how are they supposed to recognize me without my trademark?” he demanded.  
“Yes, yes,” said Zatanna, patting John on the head, “you’re just cranky we had to take a plane.” She was just as drenched as John was, and had removed her coat to vent. Billy tried not to stare.  
“Bloody things take too long. Could’ve just warped over here with a simple spell. I even have one memorized.”  
“I’m sure you do.”  
“It would’ve taken a second. Literally.”  
“Yes, yes.”  
“I could’ve done it.”  
“Does he always complain this much?” asked Billy.  
“He does,” said Zatanna.  
“Oi, mate,” said John to Billy, “you’re like four feet tall.”  
“Five feet six inches.”  
“Sure.”  
“You’re really irritating.”  
“And you’re the kid with godlike powers. Who do you think is more irritating?”  
Zatanna rolled her eyes. “Boys,” she muttered.  
“Men,” corrected John and Billy at the same time. They stared at each other, and while there wasn’t any less animosity between them, there was a flash of respect between the two of them.  
“The plan is,” continued Zatanna, “to meet up with a contact of Batman’s, who’ll smuggle us into Kahndaq’s capital city. We’ve got a safehouse set up where we can watch Black Adam from a distance and track his movements.”  
“That’s awfully convenient,” said Billy.  
“Need I remind you this is Batman we’re talking about? He has a safehouse in every capital city. Kahndaq came right after Markovia.”  
“How much does that cost?”  
“More than I make in a lifetime,” said John.  
“That’s not hard.”  
“Says the kid who’s unemployed.”  
“He’s actually not, John.”  
“Wait, are you kidding me? You have a job?”  
“Radio host.”  
“Are you f-”  
“Language, John!”  
“-fffffricking kidding me?”  
“What’s so hard about believing I have a job?”  
“I’m more surprised you can hold a job down.”  
“What does that mean?”  
“It means-”  
“Fresh fish! Fresh fish!”  
John and Billy jumped. The man at the stall proudly displayed his wares. He wore a turban and loose-fitting robes, and had a beard the size of his head. At his stall were dozens of fish laid out on ice and towels, and several more behind the wooden stall in modern coolers. Inside the stall, a girl in a robe and a baseball cap tallied up the money for the day on a calculator while she checked her phone.  
The entire market looked like that. An odd blend of modern technology and traditional methods was ever present. One man would be wearing jeans and a buttoned-up shirt and sharpening an ornamental sword. A woman in a burkha would be riding a motorcycle. One man would shout another man down in order to proclaim his own wares, and then be interrupted by the second man with a megaphone. To Billy, who’d never been in another country without flying over, it reminded him of portrayals he’d seen of India, with two key differences.  
Kahndaq was historically important. It was the policy of the government to restore old historical buildings to their former glory, so buildings that would have been grand during a golden age were commonplace. The buildings had domed roofs, flowers grew in hanging gardens, and brilliant shades of white and green were everywhere. And thanks to Teth-Adam’s knowledge of its history, the techniques to build these kinds of structures were accurate to a T.  
That was the other thing you noticed. All the propaganda.  
Posters of Black Adam were everywhere, all displaying his stupidly proud mug, standing in some pose that showed off how muscular he was. He wasn’t actually that ripped: the power of Shazam made him look like that, but did anyone care? No. His actual form was a tall, thin man with a stupidly long beard that Billy had no chance of growing, but was he jealous?  
Maybe a little. But that’s not the point.  
The lightning bolt of Shazam decorated every building and almost every person. Pins, paintings, engravings, you named it, that lightning bolt was there. One guy even carved it into the bread he baked (“Fresh this morning!”) just to get more sales. And everyone, when it was mentioned, would talk about how wonderful Teth-Adam was, how he kept us all safe.  
“They don’t even know,” said Billy. “They‘re just… letting him do what they want. Don’t they see he’s a monster?”  
John shook his head. “He’s their protector. This country has been attacked for centuries. They’re nobody’s friends, so it only makes sense their protector is everyone’s enemy.”  
Billy frowned. “I hate this. It’s like…”  
“…Hitler, during the Nazi regime?”  
“I was going to say Doctor Doom in Latveria, but yeah, that’s good, too.”  
Zatanna shushed them. “We’re coming up on the safehouse now.” She opened a notebook from within her jacket. “It looks like we’ll have to answer a couple riddles to get in, but it’s the usual fare. The safehouse is run by a reformed djinn.”  
“Another of those?” asked John. “Man, you’d think they bred like rabbits, the way they keep popping up.”  
“Someone’s coming out of the palace. You see that ledge up there? On that really big, really bright building? There’s a bunch of people. I think one of them is Black Adam.”  
“Probably out to give a speech,” said John. “Look at these people here. They’re ignoring it; he probably does it often. Well, let’s hear what he has to say. I’d assume it’s the standard villain sp-”  
There was a loud noise, and then Billy heard nothing.

Billy thought he heard his name called, but the ringing in his ears prevented him from really knowing whether or not that was true. There was smoke, and something smelled like it was burning, and the palace had a gaping hole in the side.  
“What’s going on?” asked Billy. His voice boomed in his ears, the only thing he could hear. He forced himself to his feet and glanced around.  
Rubble lay scattered throughout the market square. Painted green and white stones were everywhere, some as small as golf balls, some large enough to crush stalls. Most of the people in the market were clearing out, so it wasn’t too long ago that whatever happed had happened, and it looked like most of the people were okay.  
“Billy!”  
Billy turned, and saw John running towards him. “Mr. Constantine?” Billy asked.  
“Oh, good, you’re okay,” said John. His voice sounded like it was coming through water. “Hold on, let me get your ears.” His hands glowed, and then he placed them on Billy’s head, and then Billy’s hearing returned.  
There was screaming, the sound of fires, and angry, raised voices.  
“What happened?” Billy glanced down, and brushed stone dust off his clothes. “Why am I dirty?”  
“Explosion,” John replied. “Whatever Lee’s doing, he’s already started.” John pointed. Standing in the middle of the market were two figures. One in black, with the wizard’s lightning bolt across his chest.  
Billy’s fist clenched. “Black Adam.”  
The other wasn’t as iconic in costume as Black Adam, but what he lacked in his ragged jeans and dirty t-shirt he more than made up for with holes. There were holes in all his clothing, and they looked to Billy like they’d been burned, yet he was fine.  
“That’s him,” said Billy. “That’s Lee.”  
“I’ve met him.” John frowned. “What’s he holding? Some kind of gun?”  
“It’s not like any gun I know of,” said Billy. “I think it’s a way to kill Black Adam. I have to stop him.” Billy took a breath. “Shazam!”  
The lightning bolt streaked from the sky, slamming into Billy with enough force to blow back John’s coat, and sending up enough smoke to obscure him for a second. When it cleared, Shazam stood in his place, the bright red costume resplendent in the noonday sun.  
Billy didn’t wait another second. With the blessing of Mercury, he took off from his standing position and flew at Lee as fast as he could. He pulled back his arm to wallop the guy before he could attack Black Adam.  
A second before he ran into him, Lee turned and held out his hand. A specialized metal glove was at the end of it, with a cord running from it down into his gun. He caught Billy’s fist, and the gun gleamed with red light.  
Lee didn’t waste another second. He raised the gun, and shot Billy in the chest. Billy’s vision went dark.  
***  
I turned from the unconscious form of Shazam, and tried not to visibly show that I was geeking out at meeting him. Instead, and because this was easy to do, I turned to be angry at Black Adam. “You got one of my friends killed.”  
“Do not throw pointless accusations at my feet, worm.”  
“Not pointless. I tortured enough people to know it was you.” I cranked up the volume on the gun and pulled the trigger.  
Black Adam rocketed backward, slamming into the ruined palace and shattering the stonework. He coughed up a bit of blood, but not nearly enough for how much I needed to kill him. “…how?” he asked, wiping the blood from his chin.  
“Kinetic redirection and magnifier, or Kram, for short” I replied. I shot him again for good measure, to make sure he stayed down. “One of the STAR Labs guys had a deal with the devil. I killed that devil, and he was more than happy to present me with all the fancy tech I needed to take you down.” I shot him again when it looked like he’d start moving again. “He also helped supply the explosives that destroyed your balcony.”  
“You… killed my… staff,” he said.  
“Probably,” I said, “but knowing how much you trust them, you can bet they’re evil.”  
“They were not!” he said. He stood up. “They were people trying to protect their country!”  
“So were you, ostensibly,” I replied. “And you killed my friends.” I shot him again. He didn’t go down. “Well, that’s a bitch,” I said, right before the Kram exploded.  
I was blown across the market, slamming into the building on the other side. My shirt fell off in tatters, and my shoes were broken, but thanks to the magical nature of the DC universe my pants were mostly intact and perfectly modest.  
“Oh,” I said. “Nice.” Then I saw Black Adam coming at me. “Bugger.”  
He grabbed me by the neck and threw me at the ground, and then stomped my head in with his boot. It hurt, but I was alive, and the only thing that happened was my head got imbedded in the stone road.  
“Ow,” I said. “Stop that.”  
“Make me.”  
“Okay. Click!”  
“Click…?” A second later, Black Adam was shoved out of the way by a greenish-brown blur and flung to another corner of the market.  
“Hi!” she said. “Are we gonna kill him?”  
“We’re gonna kill him so hard,” I replied. “Unless Michael convinces him to stand down.”  
“How’s that going?”  
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen Michael yet.”  
Michael flew out of the cloud of dust that Black Adam had disappeared into and past Click and me.  
“He’s made contact.”  
“Is it going well?”  
“I would think not.”  
“Teth-Adam, please!” shouted Michael. “We can reconcile our differences!”  
Black Adam’s answer was a chunk of building thrown at Michael’s head. Michael caught it, and dropped it on the ground.  
“Back, demon!” Black Adam shouted. “I will not believe your lies!”  
“Ordinarily, sound advice,” I shouted back, “but Michael’s different!”  
A brick hit me in the head, knocking me over. Lucky for me, because Black Adam zoomed overhead a second later.  
“Click!” I said. “Soul Eater maneuver!”  
“On it!” She said. She grabbed me by the leg, and when Black Adam flew back at us, she swung me like a bat and hit him full in the face.  
He launched back and slammed into another building. “You… you would use your allies like that?”  
“I’m invulnerable!” I yelled at him, hanging upside-down by my feet.  
“We’ll see,” he said, wiping the blood from his mouth. He grabbed the building next to him, and ripped it from its foundations, then hoisted it above his head. “Let’s see if you bleed, now.”  
“Well,” I said, “that looks dangerous. Michael, run. See if you can spot his weakness.”  
“On it.” He leaped into the air, circling a good distance away from Black Adam while the building came crashing down on me and Click. I was counting on Click’s shifting abilities to get her out of it, and she shifted out of the way while I stood there and let several tons of rock fall on me.  
The roaring in my ears was worse than the pain. The crash nearly deafened me as the rocks struck the ground with the weight of a hundred trucks, and I was pelted at every moment by so much rubble that every nerve screamed out in pain.  
This only last for ten seconds, if that. When the noise settled, I was sitting at the bottom of a giant pile of rubble, and I couldn’t move.  
I didn’t have to wait long to be freed, which I count as a point for me, but I also was dug out by Black Adam and hoisted by my neck, which I think may have been bad.  
He didn’t bother with words. Instead, he pulled back his arm and combined his super-strength and speed to pummel me in the chest repeatedly. The pain was unbearable. You know the difference in scale between dropping a marble on your hand and a jackhammer to the head? This was to the jackhammer what the jackhammer was to the marble.  
I wasn’t bleeding, but the pain was too much for me to do anything except take it. When he finally let up, all the breath had been knocked out of my lungs, and I counted myself lucky that I’d not eaten for the past few months.  
“You’re not dying,” Black Adam noted. “It appears I’ll just have to get rid of you. Any last words?”  
“Yeah,” I replied. “Shazam.”  
Nothing happened. I had a brief moment to be disappointed before Black Adam smiled and I was terrified.  
“Ignorant knave,” he said, slamming me into the rubble. “The word only works for those who’ve been gifted the power! You are not one of the wizard’s choices, so you have no power!”  
“Good to know,” I groaned from the ground, “but there’s other Shazams.”  
A red streak slammed into Black Adam and knocked him off of me. Black Adam took a few steps back and raised his fists. “William Batson. So, you were allied with this cur all along?”  
“No, I’m not,” said Shazam, his fists also raised, “I’m trying to prevent him from killing you, but you’re making it difficult.”  
“I told the Americans: no foreign heroes on Kahndaq soil. It appears you’ll need to be taught a lesson.”  
“Click!” I yelled. “Get him!”  
Click leaped from where she was hidden. She’d transformed into a thin, permeable state, and laced herself along the mortar lines so that you couldn’t quite tell she was there. Unfortunately, before she had a chance to catch Black Adam, a golden light enveloped her, and she stopped in mid-air.  
“Bloody hell,” murmured John, smoking a cigarette. He was standing off to the side, just off the pile of rubble we were fighting on. Zatanna was with him, holding her hands out, already glowing with purple light and a nimbus of arcane letters. “You have to cause that much damage, Tethy?”  
“John Constantine. I know of you.”  
“Aw, I’m fl-”  
The next sound was Black Adam’s arm puncturing through John Constantine’s ribcage. It sounded like a watermelon exploding.  
“No!” screamed Zatanna. She said something backwards, but I didn’t get the chance to hear it before Black Adam zoomed over to her and knocked her out with a back-handed slap to the face.  
Shazam had enough of that, it seemed. He slammed into Black Adam, throwing him to the ground and standing over him, hitting him in the face. “Do you know what you’ve done?!” he yelled. “You’ve killed him!”  
“I’ve defended my home from invaders!” Black Adam shot back. “I did what I said I would do.” He caught Shazam’s fists, one in each hand. “And I think I’ve been given a new idea. Shazam!”  
A lightning bolt zipped down from the sky, slamming into Shazam and turning him back into Billy Batson. Before I had a chance to do anything, Black Adam reached up, grabbed Billy Batson by the neck, and with a twist, broke it.  
Billy Batson’s lifeless body fell to the ground.  
“You…” Michael stared at Billy, and then at Black Adam. “…you killed a child.”  
“He was not the first,” Black Adam said.  
“You killed a child…” Michael said, louder this time. Smoke was rising from his horns, and his eyes were losing color. “You killed a child.” His horns were on fire, now, his eyes pure red. “What was that word again?”  
“Shazam?” I asked. My mouth was dry.  
“Yes. Shazam!”  
Lightning streaked from the sky, slamming onto Michael with a bang that split the air. When the lightning cleared, Michael was as he had been, but standing perfectly still, electricity coursing along his body. His eyes were glazed, staring at something far, far away.  
“That was your plan?” asked Black Adam. “Hope to gain the power of the wizard?” He walked over to me, slapping Click away when she tried to attack him. “Weak. You should not have come at me until you were fifty times as strong as you are now.”  
“Well,” I said. “I’ve got a backup plan. IBAC!”  
My body exploded in green flames, and the smell of brimstone and sulfur filled my nostrils. And for one solid second, it felt like my body was being ripped apart, and it was far, far worse than the building landing on me.  
And then it was over, I was a good seven inches taller, and Black Adam was staring at me with a panic-stricken fury.  
I didn’t wait another second. I swung, punching him full in the face and knocking him into another building, which slumped and crashed down on top of him.  
“Lee?” asked Click. “What’s that?”  
“Someone’s else’s Shazam,” I replied. “I wasn’t sure I could use it. I probably shouldn’t use it for long, as the demons will most likely come to claim the price for this power.”  
“Demons?”  
“Yeah. Demons.” I cracked my knuckles, which were hairier than they were a second ago. “I’ve got the terror of Ivan, the cunning of Cesare Borgia, the fierceness of Atilla and the cruelty of Caligula. There’s just a problem.”  
Black Adam emerged from the ruined pile of rubble.  
“They were men, and he’s got the power of gods.”  
Black Adam was in my face and screaming as he hit me. It hurt, and it was all I could do to hit him back.  
***  
“Demon!”  
Michael stared around him. “Where am I? What’s happened?” He was in a stone room in a lowered circular dais, and around him was enough stone chairs to seat an entire council. However, there was only one person there.  
It was a dark-skinned man with a scraggly beard and tattered clothing, holding a staff with the shape of a lightning bolt at the top. He looked old, but not so much elderly as just aged. He was staring at Michael with a look that spoke of wariness, experience and fear.  
“Please,” said Michael, spreading his hands, “is this the place to obtain the power of Shazam? My friends are in danger! A child has been murdered!”  
“You expect me to believe your words?”  
“Believe what you want! You must be powerful! I beg of you, help my friends!”  
The old man stared at Michael for several seconds in silence. “This child… who was it?”  
“He… the hero, Shazam, turned into a boy, and Black Adam… broke his neck.”  
The old man nodded. “Ah, young Batson has perished.” He stared at the floor for some time. “I should never have given him the power. He was a… he was such a brave soul.” The old man dropped the staff, and held his face in his hands, sobbing quietly.  
Michael noticed the staff, gleaming with magical power. Something divine was connected to it, but if he got it away…  
A silly thought. He stooped down and picked it up. “Master,” he said, “I may not have the strength to bring Batson back, but I can avenge his death. I don’t need a great deal of power: just the strength to bring down Black Adam.” He held out the staff. “But I will not take advantage of a grieving man to do it. If you cannot help me, I will leave you to your mourning in peace.”  
The old man took the staff, and Michael bowed. Then he stood and walked away.  
“Wait!”  
Michael stopped.  
“You’re right.” The old man wiped his eyes. “Now is not the time for sadness. It is the time for action.” He slammed the staff against the ground, and lines of light ran along the council room’s floors and walls. “Black Adam has stolen the lightning bolt of young Batson’s powers, preventing Mr. Freeman from accepting them. I cannot bestow them upon you, but perhaps some other gods may be willing.” Lightning illuminated the top of the staff, and struck Michael in the chest, though he felt no pain. Only… a feeling, something he’d not felt in a long time. Not since the songs of the gods were sung around the fire, when the hunt had ended and he was back home, eating the kill and laughing with family.  
“That is the divine connection,” said the wizard. “I have reawakened it within you, and I have seen the paths that led here. If you are truly sincere in your repentance, demon, then go forth and be tested. I warn you, however: not all the gods will be willing to share their power.”  
“I understand,” said Michael. “I will try to convince them.”  
The wizard smiled. “Good luck.”  
***  
“So, you wish to bear the mantle, do you?”  
Michael was standing in the middle of a forest. He could hear the rustling of a creek nearby, and besides the tall, strong trees he could see ferns growing, and vines, and the smell… it smelled of home.  
Before him stood a man wearing a long, red tunic, holding an axe in either hand, and a crown nestled on his head. His beard was wild, though this didn’t detract from his handsome face, or downplay the mischievousness of his smirk  
“I must admit, it has been some time since one of my kinsmen has taken up the mantle. What is your name?”  
“Michael.”  
“Pashah! No, it is not! That name is harsh and hurts the mouth to speak! It is a name of the pale-faced men to the north!”  
“It was not my name,” said Michael, “but it is, now. I had to abandon my old name after what I did.”  
“Ah, mistakes of rage?” The bare-chested man grinned. “I know of those. Many a time, I have done something in haste, but do you know what you must do?”  
“Atone?”  
“No! Move forward! You are a force to be reckoned with, and whoever fights you should never forget that! Honestly, why Mamaragan asks you to learn humility is beyond me!”  
The man raised one of the axes to the sky, and dark clouds swirled overhead, rumbling and booming with thunder. And yet… there was a beat to them. A war song, when hunters had to fight one another. The memory of it resonated within Michael’s heart, reminding him of days of old, when he fought for the kill.  
“Fight me,” said the stranger. He tossed one of the axes to Michael, who caught it in one hand. “Fight me, and show that you can wield the thunder of Shango!”  
Shango was on Michael in a second, swinging his axe at Michael’s head. Michael ducked and circled Shango, getting behind him and planting a boot on his back.  
Michael pushed the god off-balance and held the axe to the side. “I don’t wish to fight you,” he said. “I just need your help.”  
“Help is not always freely given,” said Shango. “Prove to me you are as fierce as I am, and then you may have my thunder!”  
The god moved too quickly for Michael to see, and the next moment there was an axe in his shoulder. Michael shuddered in pain but didn’t cry out. He’d been taught to manage his own injuries.  
“Fight me!” said Shango, this time a little angrier. “Where is your spirt? Fight!”  
Michael staggered back, using his wings to balance himself, and then reached up, and removed the axe from his chest. “There,” he said, “now you have no weapons.” He held the axes aloft in a two-handed stance. “You have no chance.”  
For a moment, Shango looked confused and hurt, and then he laughed. “Good! Good! Only a true warrior would give up what he could recover to claim that which could not! Excellent! My power is yours.” He held out his hand, and lightning coursed into Michael’s chest. He felt a kind of kinship with Shango almost immediately after that, like the two of them were connected by an old bond. “I wish you luck with the next one. He’s one of the pale-faced gods.”  
“Thank you,” said Michael. “Cabio Sile Shango.”  
Shango looked pleasantly surprised. “Well,” he said, “at least one person doesn’t yell ‘Thor’ when lightning strikes.”  
***  
Michael stood upon a road made of a rainbow. How it remained solid under his feet, he had no idea. More to the point, there was a man standing on the rainbow with him, staring down at the icy peaks of the mountains below.  
He wore golden armor and a helmet with two ram’s horns embedded on either side. At his side was a great horn, so huge that Michael didn’t think he’d be able to blow it. The stranger had pale skin, with a golden beard and fine, blond hair. He was staring at the mountains, but something about his posture told Michael he was keenly aware of him.  
“My name is Heimdall,” said the stranger. “And your name is… hm… M… Ma… Mi… Michael?”  
“It is,” said Michael. “How could you discern that?”  
“Your heartbeat shifted as I got closer.”  
“You could hear my heart?”  
“I can hear much more than that. I can see much more than the pores on your skin. And should you want this keenness as well, you will need to answer my questions honestly.”  
“I will do my best,” Michael replied.  
“Honest already. That’s a good start. How many innocent people have you killed?”  
“I… I don’t know.”  
“You’re not telling the whole truth.”  
“I don’t know the exact number. I have killed at least eight.”  
“Who were they?”  
“My three sisters, my mother and father, my wife, and my two sons.”  
“Of all of them, who do you regret killing the most?”  
“My wife.”  
“Why?”  
“Because I knew I would never be able to hold her again.”  
“Do the others mean less to you?”  
“No.”  
“Who would you bring back?”  
“My youngest sister. She was with child when I slew her.”  
“What about your father?”  
“He was dying of sickness. It would be cruel to bring him back only to watch him die.”  
“Your heart has accelerated.”  
“Of course it has! You are asking me to judge which of my family is the most worthy of living, when I could never decide that fate!”  
“You may have to,” said Heimdall. “Do you think a villain will give you the chance to calculate how to save everyone? You won’t be able to, not every time. You’ll need to make quick decisions for who deserves to live, and who doesn’t. Do you think you could do that?”  
Michael stared down at the icy peaks below. “…yes.”  
“Do you think it would ever be easy for you?”  
“…yes.”  
“Could you ever learn to like it?”  
“No.”  
“Why?”  
“Because something good can come from something bad. If I can regain my own conscience, who else may know but someone else may?”  
Heimdall smiled. “That’s enough for me.” A bolt of lightning erupted from his chest and jumped into Michael’s. “Use the power wisely and sparingly. A little knowledge can be a cursed thing.”  
***  
Michael was on a low, gently-sloping hill, covered in vibrantly green grass. In the distance he could see lakes and ponds, intermittently spotted with trees and bushes. The sky was a pale blue, the clouds covering up the sun so that it took a few moments for Michael’s eyes to adjust.  
When they did, he was greeted by a woman with light skin wearing a gray dress loose around her shoulders. Over this she had on a green cloak, which was covered in several dozen different kind of green leaves that Michael didn’t recognize. The leaves he did recognize he realized were healing herbs that several women in his village had used for cuts and things. Her hair was loosely braided and flowed over her shoulders and back like a waterfall.  
She was watching Michael with a sad look in her eyes. “You were hurt, once.”  
“I…” Don’t lie to them. “…yes. But it was my fault.”  
“Not all your pain is tied to your actions. Your family, they were not always kind to you?”  
“I… I would never dishonor my parents by thinking of them that way.”  
“That is kind of you.” She smiled a little, but as her smile faded, it was replaced with a melancholy look. “My family was not kind, either. My father killed my brother in a jealous rage and destroyed something precious that I had made. My name is Airmid, and I offer you my empathy, and its healing abilities. To this I offer freely: no test is needed.” The lightning pulsed between her and Michael. “But do not forget this: your pain does not always define you. And what was once unlawful may become the only path you can take.”  
***  
Michael was in a Chinese teahouse, and everything was on fire.  
These were peculiar, dark red flames, and the smoking of the wood hurt Michael’s lungs. He flipped his shirt up so that he was breathing through it. The smoke still got through in a few places, but it was easier to breathe, and think. He could see the entrance was blocked, but there was a set of stairs going up a level that were not.  
Michael held the shirt in place and vaulted up the steps two at a time, coming upon a second level of the teahouse. It was square, with a large square hole in the middle that looked down onto the first level. Most of the floor was on fire, but a window at the edge was clear. Michael pulled his wings in around him to insulate himself from the heat, and then enclosed himself in them completely as he leaped through the window.  
Glass shattered around him, some cutting his wings but mostly leaving him unharmed. As soon as he was through, Michael unfolded his wings and glided down to ground level.  
A man was waiting outside, wearing green Chinese armor with red trim and cape. He had a pointed beard, and he was laughing and pointing at Michael.  
“You see?” he said. “An excellent test! To have the fury of Zhurong, you must prove you can think when your body wants to act! Truly, a test worthy of a god who formed heaven!”  
“I will not complain,” said Michael, brushing soot from his shoulders.  
“And why would you?” Zhurong spread his arms wide. “I am the god of fire! I defeated Gongong! I can do anything! You have my fury!”  
Michael watched the god, and mentally noted that it was probably best not to get on this one’s bad side. “Thank you,” said Michael. “What of the lightning?”  
“Hm? Ah, yes, the lightning. Mamaragan is such a creature of habit.” The lightning struck from his chest and hit Michael’s. “That should do it, I suppose.” Zhurong frowned. “Be warned, demon, this next test… he is something to behold.”  
“A demon?”  
“Not exactly. Well, he might as well be. But even the great Zhurong is cautious around him. He… well, you’ll see.”  
***  
Chains. Chains were locked onto Michael’s arms and legs, holding him securely in place to a large metal plate embedded in the ground. No matter how hard Michael pulled, they kept him locked.  
Glancing around revealed him to be on a large island, with crashing waves beating on the white sands of the beaches. He was on a hill in the middle of the island, about twenty feet in diameter, and the plate was the only man-made object there. That, and the suit of armor worn by that figure who just appeared.  
Whoever he was, his armor was blue, as were his cape, helmet plume and chainmail, though they were different shades of blue to efficiently complement one another. His face was obscured, but his eyes were visible; glowing, red eyes that glared at Michael with a hatred that was strangely impersonal.  
Michael tugged on the chains one more time. “Is this your test?” he asked. “To see if I can escape?”  
“You can’t escape,” said the figure. His voice sounded scarred and rough. “Chains like those held me for many years.”  
“Then what is the test?”  
“To remember.” Then the man pulled back his arm and hit Michael in the stomach.  
It was powerful enough to bend the grass and knock Michael to his knees. The stranger gave him no respite and forced him back to his feet. Then he punched Michael in the face, and from the cracking noise Michael knew his jaw was broken.  
From then on, it was a matter of just trying to stay standing as the stranger reigned blow after blow upon Michael. Soon, Michael could feel nothing in his face, breathing was difficult, his right horn had been chipped nearly down to the base and blood ran in rivers down his chest. His clothes lay in tatters, but he refused to back down. If this was what he must endure to save his friends, then he would take it.  
“You think you’re strong, don’t you?” The stranger didn’t even bother to pause while he spoke to Michael. “You think you’re showing some kind of determination by standing up to me? It’s nothing. I’ve faced hundreds of thousands of men who had more will than you do, and they all fell before me.” A particularly nasty hit knocked out several of Michael’s teeth. “Compared to the rest of them, you’re a cheap imitation, and a demon, worse. It would take ten of you to even be considered on the same ranks as any of those men, and a thousand to match the lowest of the low.”  
With a spectacular haymaker, Michael was on the ground, unable to breathe. The stranger leaned down over him.  
“Is this your test?” Michael asked. His voice rasped in his throat. “To see if I had will?”  
“No,” said the stranger. “The test was to be beaten with the prowess of Ares.” He tapped on Michael’s chest, painfully shifting a broken rib. “The wizard has asked me before for a gift of power, but do you know why I gave this now?” White teeth gleamed in a cutting smile behind his helmet. “Because death follows in his wake. War is coming, and I want a representative to be there when it starts. So, carry my power and follow Lee to the end of the world. Hopefully, it will be.”  
The electricity leaped from Ares to Michael, and then he blacked out.  
***  
Michael woke up on an island, but unlike the Grecian island from before, this one had yellow sands, and those tall trees with the canopies and coconuts. Palm trees, right?  
He was laying next to a fire, which was roasting a boar on a spit. Beside it was a slim young man, with reddish skin and tattoos covering his entire body. He was the one turning the spit. Besides a loincloth made from plant fibers, the man wore no clothing, and considering the warmth of the island, Michael suspected there was no need to. Beside him was a large fish-hook, larger than Michael’s head and horns together.  
His horns.  
Michael sat up, and instantly regretted it. His entire body was sore, and breathing was still difficult. Reaching up, he found his horns were starting to grow back, but were still chipped. His wings hurt like hell, too.  
“Finally awake, I see,” said the man.  
Michael nodded. “Thank you. What is your name?”  
The stranger grinned. “Maui. God of… well, many things. It’s not really important. What is important, though…” Maui hefted the boar from the fire. “…is meat.” He tore off a leg and started chewing on it, and then offered the rest to Michael. “Eat up. You need your strength.”  
Michael took the proffered boar, and started eating. “What is your test, then?” he asked. “My friends… do I still have time to save my friends?”  
Maui waved his hand vaguely. “You’re fine. Time doesn’t move like it does in the mortal world. You’ve still got time to enjoy your meal.” He eyed Michael askance. “Unless you’re not going to eat that?”  
Michael grinned, and took a bite. It was delicious. “What do you want, then?” Michael asked with his mouth full. “There is no lightning between us.”  
Maui ignored him for a few minutes, merely eating his leg and wiping the grease from his chin. Michael found himself hungry, and tore into the boar with a greater ferocity than he thought he had.  
By the time Michael had finished, there were only bones remaining, and not many. He burped, loudly, and then leaned back. “That… was good.”  
“It should be,” said Maui. “I stole it from the heavenly master’s house.” He grinned. “You’ve met Zhurong, yes? He keeps pigs on the side. I stole a couple and I’ve been raising them myself.” He leaned back against a rock. “Michael, I’m not against giving you my power. The point is, though, is that you’re working too hard.”  
“What do you mean?”  
“As a wise man once said, ‘It’s a magical world… let’s go exploring!’. I didn’t get to be as famous as I am now by sitting around and waiting for interesting stuff to happen. I went to find it, and sometimes fight with it.” He lightly punched Michael’s shoulder. “You were much the same, once, and you can be again. All I ask is that you use the great power we give you-”  
“…with great responsibility?”  
“I suppose. I was going to say ‘for fun’ but that works, too.” Maui stood, and hoisted Michael to his feet, who was now completely healed. “Be careful of that Ares guy. His power has something else in it.”  
“I don’t trust him,” said Michael, “and his power seems to be about fighting, which I don’t think I will ever use.”  
“You never know,” said Maui. “Life is strange. You have my power, and I give you this.” Maui held out his hook. “It will extend as far as you need it to, and always return at your call.”  
Michael held out his hand, and then stopped. “Are you sure?”  
“Sure. I can make another. And before you’re worried about worthiness or honor, just know that I can call it back, too.”  
Michael smiled, and took the hook in his hand.  
***  
As it turns out, Ibac’s pretty terrible, as far as transformative powers go.  
Sure, I was super strong, and chucking around boulders that were bigger than me. Of course it was fun to have rocks thrown at my head without hurting, and doing all of that without getting tired? Oh, so fun. Not to mention the ideas that were forming in my head from the cunning of Cesare Borgia, and the way I was able to strategize rock-throwing so Black Adam got hit with the biggest rocks.  
It was great. But there are limits.  
Black Adam wasn’t being hurt by any of my attacks. Distracted, definitely, and every chance we had to let Click land a hit on him was buying us more time, but she was starting to run on empty. I could see that. Every retaliation Black Adam used against her slowed her down more and more, and soon it was a long time between hits. She wasn’t going to last much longer unless I-  
She was down. He was on me.  
We flew around the ruined market for a little while, him angrily saying something and me being slammed into walls, which prevented me from hearing what he was saying. I blacked out from the pain a couple of times, and I came to in the middle of the market in a crater. Black Adam was finishing his rant.  
“…and I will see you bleed.” He said it in a way that suggests my bleeding was very important to him in some way. “It appears you can.”  
I stared down at my chest, which was bare, for some reason. There was a long line of blood from my face down to my stomach, and several dozen scratches and cuts besides. How was that happening? I’m invulnerable, aren’t I?  
Oh, shit.  
“Ibac!” The transformation reversed itself in another blaze of hellfire and brimstone, and I found myself in my normal body in a pile of rubble. That’s how he managed to hurt me: the power of Ibac makes me mostly impervious, not completely invulnerable. I should’ve seen that coming. I should have-  
Oh, he has me by the throat. How wonderful.  
“Back to your normal form, then.” He pulled back his fist. “Die.”  
His hand came within an inch of my face, and then stopped.  
“You will not hurt him,” said Michael.  
Michael had changed. His horns and wings were still in place, but instead of being black or dark gray they had changed to white. He wore a Shazam costume, but instead of red it was gray. His eyes were glowing gold, and in his right hand he held a really big hook that was attached to his arm with a long coil of rope, so long that it looked more like an arm brace. He was holding Black Adam’s arm with the other hand, and lightning was flashing from the sigil on his chest.  
“Let him go,” said Michael.  
“The wizard gave you the power?” Black Adam asked. “Impossible. I hold the lightning bolt.”  
“Not that power,” said Michael. “It belongs to another. Let my friend go.”  
Black Adam dropped me. “Shall we fight, then?” he asked Michael.  
“I was thinking we should talk,” Michael replied.  
“Talk? No one has the power of Mamaragan and wishes to simply talk. If that is your desire, then stop me.” Black Adam vanished in a puff of smoke, zooming off into the sky.  
Michael glanced down at me. “Stay here, and tend to the wounded. I will return shortly.” Then he pulled back his arm and launched the hook into the sky, where it must have latched onto something, because a second later he was gone.  
I groaned and sat up. The market was in shambles, rubble was everywhere, and at least two superheroes had just died. That wasn’t something I needed to think about, though, so I pushed it back until I could make sure everyone was okay.  
I just hoped they were.  
***  
Michael pulled himself into the sky. The hook of Maui was said to be able to lasso the sky, so a little thing like pulling him into it was nothing. The keenness of Heimdall told him Black Adam was just ahead, and according to his blood pressure and heart rate he was angry but calm.  
Michael shortened the length of the rope, pulling himself higher until he was level with Black Adam. The two of them were hovering several thousand feet above Kahndaq, so much so that the destruction was unviewable for any except those with Heimdall’s eyesight.  
“You’ve caught me,” said Black Adam. “I confess, I’ve never been caught because of a fishhook before, but we truly live in an age of wonders.” He was hovering with his arms crossed. “What do you want?”  
“I want you to see the harm you’re doing.”  
“I do no harm except to those who would wish it on me or my country.”  
“I don’t believe that is true. I believe you are doing more harm by trying to protect your country.”  
Black Adam glared at him. “You think you know me?”  
“I believe I do. Tell me: what would you think, should Shazam be guarding one particular place no bigger than a large city? Would you think he was merely watching his home, or hiding something more?”  
He frowned. “I would think he was hiding something.”  
“And, in much the same way, you have been protecting your country – your home! – with extreme vigor and prejudice. This is what any man would do, but I wonder that, having the power you have, whether they believe something more is at work, or whether you have something to protect beyond just that.”  
“And they believe that it’s strong enough to justify my protection,” Black Adam finished. “Are you saying that, by my very presence, Kahndaq is threatened?”  
“Strength invites challenge,” said Michael. “And you are very strong.”  
Black Adam stared down at the market. Michael wasn’t sure if he could see it from up here or not.  
“There is still a chance,” said Michael. “There’s still time to surrender, to do the right thing. I know it’s hard to change now of all times, but-”  
“No,” said Black Adam. “You’re right, demon. My very presence is bringing these threats to my home.” His fist clenched tighter. “What would you have me do?”  
“Surrender,” Michael said. “Show them you’re willing to leave, that you’re willing to do the right thing. The Justice League can take you into their custody, and you won’t have to worry about governments or nations with agendas.”  
Black Adam dropped his arms. “Alright.” He took a deep breath. “Superman. I surrender into your custody.”  
There was a blur and a rushing of wind, and then the Man of Steel was there, his arms folded. “Thank you, Teth-Adam,” he said. He was holding a pair of handcuffs that extended all the way up the arms, and even over the hands. “No one else needs to be hurt today.”  
The tyrant of Kahndaq held out his arms, and the handcuffs snapped shut.  
***  
The rubble wasn’t moving, and I couldn’t move it to get to the bodies before Superman, Michael and Black Adam landed on the ground.  
I wasn’t thinking, then. Black Adam, alive? With my friends dead?! I… I just couldn’t…  
I ran at Black Adam, yelling, and was slammed to the ground by a glowing green light. What the…? Oh, right. Green Lantern.  
The man himself hovered behind me, an aura of green light illuminating his dark skin. John Stewart, I guess, though I wouldn’t say that aloud, nor would I say anything nice right now. I need to kill Black Adam. This damned green hologram was keeping me in place, and I had no yellow on more nor any idea whether that still worked. All I could do was growl and try to get out.  
“What’s his deal?” asked Green Lantern.  
“Attempted murder of a sovereign leader,” said Superman. “We’re taking him into custody, as well.”  
“He is my friend,” said Michael. He stepped between Superman and me. “Please, leave him alone. We’ve lost our friends.”  
Superman looked morose. Even in the midst of my anger, it felt nice that he could empathize so easily with someone. Then I clawed in the dirt and growled incoherently.  
“I wish I could,” said Superman, “but he’s a danger to anyone around him if he’s allowed to go free.”  
“What of me? Will you not take me in his place?”  
“You have the power of Shazam. If the wizard trusts you that much, then I trust you.”  
“Not a wise choice,” said Black Adam, “considering who I am.”  
“That’s right,” I said. “And now I’m gonna kill you. Ibac!”  
Nothing happened. I heard laughter.  
The four of us there turned to the source, which turned out to be a red-skinned woman with hey that’s Blaze! Why does she have Click?!  
“Thank you ever so much,” she said to Superman. “Without you, my brother’s killer would never have been apprehended.” She held Click’s unconscious body aloft. “And as for you, Lee, I’m taking this. Consider it my payment for using Hell’s power.”  
Oh, shit. Ibac is powered by demons. And there’s always a price to pay. “Please, not her! She’s innocent! Take me!”  
“Why would I do that?” She grinned at me, and in that moment I knew what stone-cold fear feels like. “I can’t hurt you.” And then, in an explosion of ash and brimstone, she was gone, and Click with her.  
Then the market was silent.  
I…  
I had failed.  
And she was gone.

I don’t remember being put in shackles or the trip back to the United States. I don’t remember being loaded in a truck or where I was being taken. I only remember that I was in the same truck as Black Adam, and we were bolted to the walls.  
There’s a comic I remember reading, where Punisher is locked in the same truck as a bad guy. The bad guy taunts Punisher, and then Punisher goes apeshit and crashes the truck. And here I was, right with the guy who killed all my friends, and I had several different powers I could use to kill him. Ibac or Sabbac were possibilities, or even the equation.  
But I didn’t. I just sat there and stared at the dark gray slate behind his head.  
“There was a man,” said Black Adam, “that wanted me to kill you. I had been harboring him in Kahndaq, as I believed him to be a fugitive from the American authorities. If he knew of your friends, though, he must be something more.”  
“Uh-huh,” I said.  
“His name was Kelly. I don’t know more than that, but I do know he was also gifted with the same kind of knowledge you are privy to.”  
I stopped staring at the wall and stared at Black Adam. “…what?”  
“He spoke often of something called Prime Earth, and about a man named Alan Scott when referring to your friend with the ring. I was never able to get him to speak about where he’d come from, but he mentioned he was an agent of Eclipso, who was the manifestation of God’s Vengeance.”  
“That’s not right,” I said. “Spectre is the manifestation of God’s Vengeance. Eclipse is God’s Wrath. You’ve got the two backward.” I paused as the weight of what I’d just said fell onto me. “Oh, barnacles. Backward.”  
“What are you thinking?”  
“If this Kelly person you’re talking about had the two backwards, maybe he’s not from this Earth at all. Maybe he’s like me, but he was sent to a different Earth. He was sent to…” I paused. “He’s the evil version of me from Earth 3.”  
“Evil… version?”  
“There’s an evil version of every hero on that Earth, and a good version of every villain. I should have seen this coming; eventually, everyone meets their darker counterpart. But now that I know who this is, I can go after him.”  
“Perhaps,” said Black Adam, “perhaps not. If this man has so easily killed your friends, then perhaps he is merely toying with you?”  
“Not possible,” I said. “I know my own limits, and I couldn’t do this.”  
The van rocked to a stop, and the two of us went silent. We heard scuffing sounds as the security guards got out of the van and spoke to someone. I couldn’t hear the stranger’s voice, but the guards sounded peeved. After a few minutes, the back of the van opened, and the two guards stepped in. They spent a couple seconds on Black Adam’s restraints, and then unbolted him from the wall, carrying him outside to let the stranger in.  
He was Asian, with glasses that had been broken several times and repaired by gluing them together. He wore simple plaid and a gray t-shirt with jeans. He was as ugly in this world as I was.  
He stood in front of me for a couple seconds, staring at me in silence. Then he crouched down and stared me in the eyes. “Good afternoon. How are you?”  
“Fine, thanks,” I replied. “My name’s Lee.”  
“Kelly,” he replied.  
“You don’t look like a Kelly.”  
“You don’t look like a Lee.”  
There was a spark of recognition that passed between us, like knowing someone else so well that, for a moment, all you see is yourself. Then that moment faded, and all I saw was this asshole.  
“Come to gloat?” I asked. “Come to revel in your victory over me?”  
“Not really,” he said. “I’ve just come to see my counterpart, and I have to say, I’m disappointed.”  
“I’m flattered.”  
“Don’t be. You’ve fallen short of every expectation.”  
“So what? I’m not a hero killer, like you.”  
“Hero…? You must be mistaken. I was summoned by Eclipso to punish the guilty, and I’ve done that.”  
I opened my mouth to retort, and then slowly closed it. “Right… Black Adam mentioned you’d been summoned by the aspect of Vengeance.” But that would mean… “Did you…?”  
“Yep.” He grinned at me, and I wondered if that’s the shit-eating grin people saw me have when I was being annoying. “Ultraman. Owlman. Superwoman. Johnny Quick. Power Ring. Sea King. Martian Manhunter. They’re all dead, as well as a host of other costumed freaks and villainous monsters.”  
“But… how? How did you leverage your invulnerability like that?”  
“Invulnerability? Is Eclipso a cheapskate in this universe?”  
“No. The Spectre is the aspect of Vengeance here.”  
“Ah, that explains it. He was a tough nut to crack, you know that? One of the worst criminals out there, but his methods were so tasteful he was practically a hero.”  
“He’s a good guy here, but a real creep.”  
“That’s what I figured. See, I didn’t get invulnerability, like you.” Kelly lifted the hem of his shirt, revealing disfiguring scars of cuts, burns and tears that had healed horribly. “Now, I won’t say it wasn’t useful, but it’s left me in quite a pickle. See, the power Eclipso gave me was adaptability: any power I come across, I adapt to in order to fight. I brought down Ultraman because I could turn my body into solar radiation, and I poisoned his body. I killed Superwoman because I could generate feedback, and I turned her lasso of pain back on her to overload her brain.”  
“What about Owlman?”  
Kelly laughed, and dropped his shirt. “Ah, yes. That was remarkably quick. I’m beginning to see why you’re my counterpart. Owlman was difficult to bring down, true. No superpowers to speak of, and his Owlman identity was too closely guarded to be vulnerable. The only way to kill him was to take out Thomas Wayne Jr. himself. This wasn’t easy, to say the least, but a trained sniper watching the window at the same moment I was thrown out did the trick fine.”  
“You got thrown out a window too?”  
“Yeah, by Tom. Who threw you out?”  
“Lex Luthor.”  
“Lex-? Wonders never cease. I didn’t get to see Thomas’ body, at first; I had to travel back up to see his brains scattered across his office. Of course, Alfred was there and shot me in the shoulder; I think he must’ve been rattled from seeing his adopted son die. I had to kill him, too, but it was easier, considering that there was an open window right nearby.”  
“Is that how I sound?” I asked.  
“Probably not yet,” Kelly replied. “Keep in mind, I’ve had tougher opponents and better opportunities. When my world was cleansed and on its way to a better future, there was nothing left for me to do. I thought I might journey to another world, and Earth Prime has always been held in disdain, as our heroes were villains here. I thought you might not have as much trouble, considering.”  
His face changed, then, to a haunted look that spoke of pain and loss, but more so an anger and rage that was barely contained. “At least, that’s what I thought. Maybe you have a sucky ability, but how many people did you have working for you? You had your own Blackfire, Power Ring, you had two demons and a couple super-soldiers. With all those resources, you could’ve finish off every villain on your Earth.”  
“It’s not that easy,” I shot back. “You can’t just kill anyone who breaks the law.”  
“And why the hell not?! You and I both know the way this Earth is put together! There is good, and there is evil. You know what both look like. You could’ve just killed everyone.”  
“Do you have a version of the Red Hood?”  
“Yeah, I think. A Talon who went good for a while, and then turned back to evil.”  
“He turned to good on my Earth. If there’s one thing I’ve seen from following this Earth’s story, it’s that you can change sides and be good again.” I stared at him for a moment. “That’s what you did. You poisoned Black Adam against me, saying I was going to kill him.”  
“He was a villain,” said Kelly. “He would be again. It was only a matter of time.”  
“A matter of time? My friends are dead, Kelly. Star and Sean were shot in the head. House bled out in her own parallel dimension. Cain was stabbed in the chest with a wooden stake.”  
“You had someone named Cain on your team and that didn’t raise any red flags?”  
I lurched against my bonds, which only resulted in fumbling in place. “My friend is damned to hell because of you. I’ve lost anyone I’ve cared about on this Earth because of you.”  
“Then use it to make you better,” he said. “At least two of your friends are still alive. You just drove them away. Johnny Quick slaughtered any friends I ever made on my Earth, so I had to turn his brain into mush as a statement. Things escalated from there, so I had to cut all ties, and it made me stronger. You haven’t. You aren’t what vengeance needs you to be.” He smiled at me. “Don’t worry. By the time I’m done with you, you will be.” He patted me on the cheek.  
“You think I won’t get out of this?” I asked. “They’re putting me in a prison. I’ll get out, and I’ll come find you.”  
“That’s fine. Just so you know…” he pulled out his phone and showed me two pictures. One was a selfie of himself with Zhanna in the background. The timestamp was two days ago. The other was a picture of Click in a cage, surrounded by flames. She was crying. “…I have them. You come after me, they die.”  
“You’re using them as hostages?”  
“No. I know I can’t stop you. You and I, we’re determined folks. I’m just telling you, the instant I see you coming for me, they die. If you want to stop me, you have to sacrifice two of your friends, and when you finally find me, I’ll be standing over the corpse of your last friend.” He smiled. “Then you should be strong enough to do what needs doing.”  
“You expect me to believe that?”  
“Sure,” he said. He snapped his fingers, and a second later, the two prison guards brought Black Adam back in. Kelly turned to him. “Heya, Teth. How are you today?”  
“My name is-”  
“Whatever.” Kelly reached out, and his hands turned to steel as he grasped Black Adam by the head and snapped his neck. The two guards watching didn’t even react. “So you see, it’s rather easy for me to kill him. I hope you take this lesson to heart: we don’t parley with evil. Ta.” Kelly turned and stepped out the back of the bus. The door slammed shut, and I rode the rest of the way to our destination in silence, with only Black Adam’s corpse for company.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was far too long.  
> First things first: Merry Christmas! It's a chilly 49 degrees where I live, and there is absolutely no snow.  
> Second: there are like three gods that start with "Z". It's so hard to find them, and that was before I realized that you could use mythical or religious figures (Wisdom of Solomon, for one) for Shazam's power.  
> Finally, I'm not going to delve too deeply into the Earth 3 stuff, except to talk about Kelly's backstory. I love it, but I feel like Earth 3 kinda falls apart if you look at it too closely, so I'll leave it alone.  
> As always, thanks for reading. I've been playing Super Smash Bros Ultimate too much recently.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to critique my grammar, lore, and spelling. Any kudos you give are greatly appreciated.


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